news
The solution to deadlines is usually “cut scope”
Quoting: The solution to deadlines is usually "cut scope" - Duck Alignment Academy —
Deadlines come for all of us, even in open source projects. The deadlines are often self-imposed (individually or collectively), but that doesn’t make them any less of a deadline. As the deadline approaches and you realize you’re not going to meet it, what do you do? There are a variety of approaches, but the best is usually to do less work.
As you may recall from Program Management for Open Source Projects (or innumerable other books, articles, and manifestos), a project’s cost, scope, quality, and time are all interrelated. When you’re time bound, you can increase the cost (“cost” in an open source project is usually “contributor effort”), decrease the quality, or decrease the scope. My recommendation is to cut scope. Doing less work is both effective and least likely to upset your users.
Cutting quality by doing less testing or being more rushed just leads to more work later as you fix the bugs your users found. Users typically don’t like finding bugs; they much prefer you fix them pre-release. Increasing the cost is rarely an option — contributors are probably already giving you as much time as they can. You might be able to cajole a brief burst of extra effort, but you can’t do that repeatedly.