Paul Scrivens has a post up on deadlines and how they apparently aren’t honored any more. I don’t know about that, if I’ve got a client I certainly try to keep to my deadlines since I feel ashamed if I don’t, but OK, Scrivs points to his surroundings so I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.
Maybe you are at a job and the current client doesn’t fit with how you work because you don’t do deadlines. Deadlines are too restrictive and hinder the creative process right?
Is that you, dear reader? Do you feel deadlines keep you down, and make sure you won’t excel yourself this time either, just because you’re out of time? Well, in my book that means you either miscalculated when giving your client (which could be yourself as many of us are self-employed) the deadline in question, or you took a wrong turn in the design process. It’s a skill itself to know how long things are going to take, and then to actually stick with the plan you made.
And it’s not something that hinders the creative process. Done right, you’ll see that the actual creative work you do is something that precedes the actual construction process. Doing your own blog design or whatever can slide forever if you just start fiddling about, but if you sit down and make a solid development plan for yourself you’ll soon find that when it comes to actually making the actual design most of the work is already done.
Sure, there are turns, it is a process, but if they’re sharp and unpredictable then you didn’t do it right in the first place.
Perhaps your designer surroundings need a bit of discipline and proper education in how to manage a project, Scrivs?
Originally posted on December 12, 2006 @ 10:51 am
Where are the good old times when you had to pay if you didn’t manage deadlines or you didn’t get paid?
Are there people who still work that way? I know I do.
And if for certain projects I know I’ll need longer I discuss it with the client before accepting the project.
I’ve never had to pay for missing a deadline (then again I rarely do – with clients at least), but I feel truly ashamed when I need to discuss the fact that I didn’t estimate time good enough. I’m pretty sure not keeping deadlines is a good way to make sure you get a bad reputation and less work, so in a way you’re paying…
Everyone can make mistakes or run into unforeseen problems, but being careless about it is not the way to tackle the situation.
Thord, I have thought of deadlines in a wider context than only web design. I know in print design (depending on the size of your order) it still is included in many contracts, construction surely… but I also know some public service web design contracts where the fine/day late is part of the contract.
But then again, if I read such an entry (and yes Wisdump
iswas in my feed roll) I spontaneously and instantaneously lose every professional respect. And at the moment I am wondering if such a post could have negative influences on the reputation of Business Logs, seen indirect connection with that company.Wow …
“All we need to do is pump out one nice looking website every two months and a couple more clients will trickle in and the ones that were complaining about missed deadlines will disappear and our reputations will go untarnished.”
That is simply unbelievable – and yes, any professional respect is out the door for folks like that who don’t stick to a deadline and … don’t care.
Unfortunately, there may be reasons for not meeting deadlines .. time aspect .. liability .. quality control .. etc and I personally have missed deadlines in publishing works I was not comfortable in releasing at the time.
In a majority of the cases I would just compensate my client with a courtesty discount. There have been a few that I ended up firing the client and returning all the information back to the client, and eating the time with no billing – than signing my name to something I wasn’t comfortable.
And speaking of not being comfortable … WHy bother to change the headline here? And not the URL?
franky,
I haven’t come across it in the print design I’ve done either, but I’m sure it still applies in some contracts. I’m sure you’re right. :)
As for credibility, I think the post is more about how Scrivs’ surroundings act than how he does himself, although I must say that the post sure is dubious.
Hart,
True, true… And as for the permalink, who knows. I liked the first headline, it played on Scrivs’ post title, but sure, I can see why it got changed and have no objections there. :)