[dclapp]

What you call crunch time is what I call poor project management. I started out as the managing editor of a daily newspaper. We shipped an entire product every day. We never slipped, we never missed a daily deadline… Just like every other daily newspaper. And there was never a OMG OMG crunch time as the daily deadline neared. If you manage a project correctly, when the deadline arrives you'll be sitting around telling jokes and admiring your work. I've done it many times. It can be done and it is not that difficult.

[katravax]

To be fair, making the average daily newspaper is a different kind of project than how most software is made. Print is mostly a fixed process with few creative unknowns. You know how long it takes for something to get through editorial or advertising, how long it takes to lay it out or drop in a replacement, what time the printer needs the layouts to be able to get the final papers to distribution, and what price and time are involved in special features or changes, like spot color or losing some number of copy inches at the last minute. But much of software is something new, the automation of some process or creation of efficiency. Software projects, almost by definition, have some of the players doing something they've never done before. Parts of the processes are similar, but software and daily print projects aren't really comparable for most of the cycle.

[dclapp]

I have been a manager in both businesses. of course there are differences; but there are also many similarities. the big idea is that if there is a firm, inflexible deadline, you will meet it. You may not ship the product that you really wish to ship, but you will ship. and, to be honest, feature X that has to be in the product, probably can just as easily go in the next release. Don't let the best be the enemy of the good. Be realistic about your capabilities.

[katravax]

Then yes, if you limit it to the subset of software projects that can cut features and still be considered to have met the deadline, then you can meet inflexible deadlines in software projects. You've defeated technical unknowns and external dependencies with the escape hatch of "Feature x, or whatever ship-worthy part of that you can have done by date y".

In that scenario, I think you're implying that meeting a deadline is the most important metric. I consider that far more likely in periodicals than software. For the common varieties like commercial software, contract development, and in-house development, the only one likely to permit that idea is the commercial product. Contracting and in-house projects will adjust the ship date or renegotiate requirements.

[taocoyote]

Totally agree and yet I still expect there will be periods of crunch time. I hope that employers will be tolerant of my shortcomings and so I tolerate theirs.