The Inescapable Deadline: 5 Reasons Managers of Product Teams Keep Setting Them

Hint: You can forge a better path to product success.

The Perilous Deadline | Image by DALL-E

Deadlines don’t motivate; they destroy motivation.

But I can understand why managers set deadlines.

It’s a desperate move to create certainty amidst the uncertainty they face.

I’ve seen many teams, customers, and their products suffering from the fallout of this practice.

• Fear of missing the deadline reduces transparency.
• No space remains for learning, crippling requisite product evolution.
• Stress of delivering on time leads to corner-cutting.
• Hiding from blame and finger-pointing for missed deadlines reduces teamwork.
• Anxiety around getting started increases work-in-progress, missteps, and delays.

The drive to set deadlines as a means of control has backfired.

Grasping for certainty without evidence is a delusion.

Keep reading, and you, as a manager of product teams, will see why deadlines persist as a practice. And you will get some tactical countermeasures to combat your tendency to set them.