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Science

Missed Deadlines Lead People To Judge Work More Harshly, Study Says (theguardian.com) 70

A new study reveals that late work is judged more negatively than on-time submissions, even if delays are minimal or pre-communicated. "The findings suggest that, while you might be tempted to take the maximum allotted time to put the finishing touches to a report, submission or piece of work, the extra effort might not be appreciated by colleagues if it comes at the expense of punctual delivery," reports The Guardian. From the report: The study surveyed thousands of people in the US and UK, including managers, executives, human resources personnel and others whose jobs included an element of evaluating others. Participants were asked to rate pieces of work, such as advertising flyers, art, business proposals, product pitches, photography and news articles. But first, they were told it was either submitted early, on deadline or late. "Late" work was consistently rated as worse in quality than when people were told the same work was completed early or on time. The difference was equivalent to including an objective shortcoming such as not meeting a word count.

A missed deadline led evaluators to believe an employee had less integrity, and they reported they would be less willing to work with or assign tasks to that person in the future. "Everyone saw the exact same art contest entry, school submission or business proposal, but they couldn't help but use their knowledge of when it came in to guide their evaluation of how good it was," said Maglio, who co-authored the study with David Fang of Stanford University.

Those who eagerly submit work early should be advised that this does not appear to earn a boost in opinion, according to the report in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. It also didn't matter how late the work was submitted, with one day or one week delays viewed just as negatively -- and that remained the case if the employee gave their manager advance warning. The latest study suggests that it is this inability to plan realistically that is frowned on, with factors beyond an employee's control, such as jury duty, not viewed as negatively. "If the reason why you missed the deadline was beyond your control, you as the employee should let your manager know," said Maglio. "That seems to be one of the few instances in which people cut you a break."

Missed Deadlines Lead People To Judge Work More Harshly, Study Says

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  • If earliness has no advantage, then it won't tend to happen. If reduced lateness has no advantage, then there won't be any urgency to correct delays. And if supervisors are judging work unfairly based on absolute schedule rather than quality, they're telling subordinates to do a half-assed job and just avoid scrutiny.
  • Equate that to showing up late to work......and people like that always have an excuse ! And if that person is suppose to relieve you so you can go home, yup, that's a negative !!!
  • Sounds about right (Score:4, Interesting)

    by toutankh ( 1544253 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @05:35AM (#64944823)

    As a teacher, when grading assignments: if everyone did the job in ten days and you had an extra day, then you had 10% more time, so I expect 10% better work. Otherwise how is it fair to everyone who delivered on time? With caveats of course, for extraordinary circumstances. But in my experience the students who asked for delays were often not the ones who had the hardest circumstances.

  • If you missed the deadline, it means you had more time to do the same work than the others, so to be fair, your work should be judged to a higher standard than the others. Because anyone who had done work with a deadline knows that missing the deadline is almost always caused by oneself delaying or putting off doing the work, rather than some real external factors.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      No.
      Missing the deadline usually means only one thing: the deadline was unreasonable early. The timeframe to make the work was simply to short.

      And that is why we do not work with deadlines in agile projects.
      We have a stack pf work. Divide it into chunks and deliver a sprint every 2, 3 or 6 weeks. For every sprint we plan how much work we think we can put into it. Every sprint end we know how good we are at estimating. Forecasting from our sprint performance we get a good idea how many more sprints we need to

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What a load of tosh. It must be nice up in your ivory tower, but in the real world, there are deadlines that cannot be moved. In Agile development, you either adjust the deadline or you adjust the scope, or you fail or shouldn't have bid on the project in the first place.

        Work invariably grows to fill the time available. Even then, some people are going to be late, perhaps because they're incapable of planning or managing their time. That even applies for short sprint long time frames where engineers hav

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        yes except in the real world; where customers are promised completion dates. Contracts for things like finances have terms that have dates. Materials need to be ordered and workers need to be able to do the labor so they can get paid and don't go on to other jobs. There are quasi artificial considerations like, we need this done in the current tax year because it is deductible.

        Deadlines exist, and often have expensive consequences when they are not met. Other then needing stuff in early enough to grade it

        • Yeah, and we know they do not work.
          So?

          What is your point?

          The lowest bidder gets the contract. And he will never meet the deadline.
          He has to pay a contract penalty - in theory.

          But in praxis he points to many "unclear requirements", needs and gets extra money and extra time.

          Look at all those delayed construction projects. The lowest bidder always knew: the deadline is impossible in relation to the workforce and the money. But he did not care, as he knew how to game the customer.

          As I said, assignments in schoo

      • by Bongo ( 13261 )

        I think what the replies seem to be missing is that, often, deadlines are set without any real basis for the estimate. And rather than the truth becoming apparent very late in the project, instead, by watching and checking small chunks along the way, the real pace can be seen and the truth about whether it's going to be complete on time or not can be known.

        People are like, in the business world there's a deadline so deal with it... well, measuring the pace in small chunks is dealing with it.

      • No. Missing the deadline usually means only one thing: the deadline was unreasonable early. The timeframe to make the work was simply to short.

        And that is why we do not work with deadlines in agile projects.

        In my line of work, the project happens when it happens, and if you don't hit the deadline, you fail, and no need to submit late work.

        This might seem odd and exceedingly stressful for many here. But not everything in life and the working world has tolerance for the at least you did your best concept.

        You work around the failure, and then analyze what went wrong. Sometimes it is a workload issue, sometimes a personnel issue. In my present, I was called on to replace a personnel issue, replacing a perso

      • And that is why we do not work with deadlines in agile projects.

        Lol.

        Agile is just deadlines more often.

      • Missing the deadline usually means only one thing: the deadline was unreasonable early.

        LOL. You write a lot of rubbish but this really takes the cake. There are literally countless reasons to miss a deadline and only one of them has to do with a deadline being too early.

        And that is why we do not work with deadlines in agile projects.

        Agile... everything about you has just started making sense.

      • "Divide it into chunks and deliver a sprint every 2, 3 or 6 weeks. For every sprint we plan how much work we think we can put into it. Every sprint end we know how good we are at estimating. Forecasting from our sprint performance we get a good idea how many more sprints we need to finish the work."

        Those are deadlines. You have deadlines.

    • by pjt33 ( 739471 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @06:25AM (#64944899)

      But you get the same negative reaction to situations where there wasn't a true deadline, just an estimate of how long the work would take, and even if the reason for missing the estimate is that the requirements changed three times after the estimate was made.

    • by lsllll ( 830002 )

      That's such a limited view of the situation. There is an expression, "If you want something to get done, give it to the busiest worker." That happens all the time and leads to them being late on some of their deliverables. I call bullshit on their statement of "A missed deadline led evaluators to believe an employee had less integrity, and they reported they would be less willing to work with or assign tasks to that person in the future." That may be true if the evaluator didn't know the individuals and

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      Not necessarily. Consider, one person turns in a decent paper on-time. It's all they had to work on that week. Another has to take care of his younger siblings after a parent unexpectedly goes to the hospital and is only one day late in spite of it. Their paper is also decent./

      I would rate the performance for the on-time paper in that case as OK and the day late paper as stellar.

  • Just to pile on what others have said, if you're late submitting your work, it affects others. If you're part of a planning group, your late submission could (and probably does) mean you've delayed the project. Or worse, your lateness causes the company to lose the bid for the project. Maybe your lateness causes a delay in the launch of a product. Maybe there's a delay in putting out a fix for some defect. There are a multitude of issues with submitting work late, a few of which could endanger people's

    • Yep. I relate to this 100%

      Personally, I hate the stress of a looming deadline so I prefer to finish things as quickly as possible so that I can sit back and be stress free.

      I am always running ahead of schedule on all my projects. I just get things done because it makes everyone happy.

      I am also one of those people who panics when I am late and will try to arrive an hour early if left to my own desires.

      One of the biggest points of contention in my marriage is my wife's lack of a sense of urgency (from my poin

    • Just to pile on what others have said, if you're late submitting your work, it affects others. If you're part of a planning group, your late submission could (and probably does) mean you've delayed the project. Or worse, your lateness causes the company to lose the bid for the project. Maybe your lateness causes a delay in the launch of a product. Maybe there's a delay in putting out a fix for some defect. There are a multitude of issues with submitting work late, a few of which could endanger people's lives (depending on your line of work).

      As I noted in a previous post, there are some field like my previous work, where the research was to show if something could be done or not. Before that gets muddied up in the conversation, that's a different thing, and people are still working hard.

      If someone doesn't understand what the big deal is with submitting work late, you can tell them they shouldn't have an issue with their food order being delivered late. If it arrives a few hours after they order it, no big deal.

      Doggonit - you might have made the first perfect analogy! It is a remarkably modern phenomenon that seems to be attempting to normalize not even worrying about simple things like when we are supposed to have the work finished. Poor people upset because their wo

  • by Njovich ( 553857 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @06:18AM (#64944883)

    Douglas Adams said it best: 'I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.'

    The comments in this thread just show the zeitgeist. Results don't matter any more, only appearances do.

    • Douglas Adam's was not working in an office with other people. He was an independent contractor/author who didn't get paid until his book was done. No one else was impacted by it.

      "Participants were asked to rate pieces of work, such as advertising flyers, art, business proposals, product pitches, photography and news articles" is clearly a business environment where being late can severely impact other people and fuck up critical business deals.

      For example, your business proposal was only a day late, just

      • by Njovich ( 553857 )

        Maybe look up something about Douglas Adams before correcting others. Hint: BBC. And not the BBC you usually look up late at night. Not that it surprises me with your comment that quality or accuracy of your work us not really your thing. I'm sure you are really punctual though.

        In the study, nothing is mentioned to these people about consequences of missing the deadline. And neither are they asked to judge it. Not every missed deadline has crushing effects on the company. However doing poor or mediocre work

        • Ok I looked up DA and your sex fantasies. Now what?

          Adults don't need to be told explicit consequences for being late or missing deadlines. It's even right there in the word DEADline.

        • In the study, nothing is mentioned to these people about consequences of missing the deadline. And neither are they asked to judge it. Not every missed deadline has crushing effects on the company. However doing poor or mediocre work (on time or not) does.

          What it tells us in no uncertain terms with no ambiguity is that if you miss deadlines, they are not important to you.

          Good luck with that 'tude.

      • You're banging on a single line about the punctuality imperative, with zero acknowledgement that that is not the only context.

        Sure, sometimes deadlines are there because your task is part of a sequence.

        Other times it's not, and accuracy and quality are more important.

        Also, your talk about Douglas Adams reveals that you don't know shit about shit.

        • Thanks for filling me in on DA. That was informative.

          My entire everything about this is strictly on topic to the article and the study it discusses. If you want to discuss something tangential, that's cool.

        • You're banging on a single line about the punctuality imperative, with zero acknowledgement that that is not the only context.

          Sure, sometimes deadlines are there because your task is part of a sequence.

          Other times it's not, and accuracy and quality are more important.

          I read you as saying that having your part of a project done on time is irrelevant, and we must use nuance, and expect that even if you loser a contract because your project was late, at least you did your best.

          The working world is not the same world as grade school, and we don't get trophies for late work.

          I would stay up late and get up early to make certain my work was on time, and accurate and high quality.

          Would you hire a workforce that wasn't worried about deadlines? Or got booboo feelings tha

      • "Participants were asked to rate pieces of work, such as advertising flyers, art, business proposals, product pitches, photography and news articles" is clearly a business environment where being late can severely impact other people and fuck up critical business deals.

        For example, your business proposal was only a day late, just one day after the meeting with the client. Why do you think you got fired for fucking up the deal and embarrassing everyone else in your company?

        Good enough is better than not being there.

        And then they are surprised Pikachu faced that the company who did get the proposal on time is the company that gets the contract.

        Why? because that companies proposal was on time. If your company can't get it on time for a proposal, they probably won't get the project done on time either.

    • This quote, and the top level article it is attached to, describes perfectly why at 54 I'm stuck at $60-$65/hr contracting.

  • by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @06:21AM (#64944891)

    This is a well known phenomena. It just leads to people overestimating everything and to ignoring urgent requests when they come in. And it leads to strained relationships and wasted resources when people don't value something for what it is.

    Reality is that sometimes it is better to be late and you, your boss, your team, and your customers need to be able to know when those times are and when they aren't.

    Releasing a product with too many defects is a good example. Releasing on time is much worse than being late depending on the defects.

    A contract that is poorly written can be a terrible mistake.

    Plenty of real life examples of things that take longer than you thought. Doesn't mean that punctuality and timeliness are important, but we need people to be taught why it is important and when it is less important.

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )
      • Important | Urgent, Important

        Unimportant | Urgent, Unimportant

      You should know what quadrant every task you working on falls into. If you don't you probably should have some sit downs with your manager or clients etc, so can understand what their priorities are which things are urgent because of considerations you are not aware of and you might not be, there are things like I have grant money that must be used this year but company policy prohibits me from putting more than 50% down on undeliver

  • " But first, they were told it was either submitted early, on deadline or late."

    Does not make them wait for the submission. Not double blind.

    You may as well say "this work was done by a criminal, judge it".

  • by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <slashdot@[ ]rstead.org ['kei' in gap]> on Thursday November 14, 2024 @07:54AM (#64945029)

    Anyone who has a deadline for a project, that deadline exists for a reason. You may not know the reason, but it's there.

    By delaying, you are then impacting others downstream from progressing on whatever the next step was supposed to be with the output you were responsible for.

    Time is what kills companies.

    • I don't get how someone moderated this funny. This is an exactly correct point about the purpose and value of deadlines.

      Deadlines are coordination points. They're how you avoid people being 100% occupied one day and 0% occupied the next.

    • For those who are setting the deadlines and evaluating the work, we need to consider some surrounding issues. This is especially true if a normally reliable employee misses a deadline.

      +-- Was the deadline imposed or agreed upon? If it was imposed, was it appropriate?
      +-- Did the scope of work change after the deadline was set?
      +-- Was the time required to complete the work known or knowable? Work with cutting edge technology may require more flexible time frames.
      +-- If the task involves third parties, did

  • Its not just the lack of punctuality in reports people don’t like. I fear it’s more the utter disrespect conveyed with people being late in many other aspects as well. Being “socially late” being abused or misinterpreted as acceptable most all the time. The concept of “ghosting” being found everywhere. People are fed up with the unprofessionalism.

    Respect deadlines. Especially your own. If you don’t respect your own deadlines, you won’t respect anyone el

  • As my technical writing professor said decades ago, "Sometimes it must be perfect, sometimes it must be done by Thursday". That's part of knowing the audience. Prying the relative importance between schedule and correctness out of Management isn't always easy though. A Gantt chart is a big help, how many others are waiting on you?

    • My managers over time have strongly preferred a prompt and succinct deliverable over a agonized and perfected one.

      A quick "hey boss, here is my first draft of what you asked for. Please provide some feedback. I might have miscounted the neutrons in section 3, but it's within 5%, is that good enough? The proposed budget and schedule are solid though."

      Your success with this depends on having a manager willing to engage in revisions and analyze your drafts. Are you in an organization that embraces iteration

  • ... I only ask because it shouldn't take a study to tell anyone this. I mean, as an adult who works for a living out in the real world, we can recognize a company that fails to deliver an adequate product by the speed at which they produce the goods and services they were paid to produce. If you miss a deadline we're now looking at how we're going to get rid of you since we had piles of people who were waiting on your product.
  • by fropenn ( 1116699 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @11:50AM (#64945577)
    I knew a guy who was a substitute in a major symphony orchestra. In his first rehearsal, he immediately noticed that the orchestra played well behind the conductor. It was so bad that the conductor could be finished conducting the piece, turning around and bowing while the orchestra was still playing.

    He asked his stand-mate why the orchestra played so far behind the conductor. The stand-mate replied, "because he lets them."

    If you want people to meet deadlines, be a good leader and create systems that support on-time completion. Make sure people understand which deadlines are important. Make sure they have the resources they need to meet deadlines. Make sure there are redundancies in case life happens and people get sick or get hit by a bus.
  • You mean the ones that come from upper management, that are insanely unrealistic (if they're even possible), and who tell those below them "whatever it takes"?

    And then use the impossibility of making those deadlines a reason for mediocre/bad annual reviews?

    And yeah, not that you're reading this, but I'm talking about you, Dick Notebeart, once head of Ameritech.

  • p.s. Sorry if I got it posted a bit late.

  • More evidence of white supremacist ideology. Deadlines? We don't need no stinkin' deadlines!

Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. - Anonymous

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