The Trick To Deadlines

If you're in software or technology, you're familiar with the concept of a deadline. Engineering is filled with constraints, so much so that I often define engineering as the art of constraints. Deadlines are simply a type of time constraint. As with all constraints, they can be categorized into two sets: soft and hard. Hard constraints are non-negotiable, whereas soft constraints merely incur a penalty. The cargo capacity of a rocket headed to space is a hard constraint, and exceeding limits is a recipe for catastrophic failure. Turning your phone off or putting it into airplane mode during a flight is a soft constraint. The plane will take off and land just fine whether you do it or not.

Deadlines in software are frustrating because software estimates are never accurate. In his mind-bending book "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid," Douglas Hofstadter coined Hofstadter's Law regarding time estimates: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account H…