Pressure and Project Schedule

• Very little that of the pressure that you apply to knowledge workers will actually increase the speed completion
• When faced with difficult deadlines the only options are:
  • Eliminate waste
  • Defer tasks not on the critical path
  • Stay late

All of these options are very unlikely to produce a positive effect on deadline and may actually cause the opposite¹.

Pressure causes a short term reduction in time to completion by having workers cut waste and maybe stay late (phase I). Phase II, work quality slips as workers tire and “take back” time. Region III is where workers begin to depart and perhaps the project falls apart all together¹.

1. DeMarco, T. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency. (Currency, New York; London, 2002).