Have you ever been given a really difficult project and an impossible deadline?

experiMental

I just wonder, has any student or a professional out there actually been given a really difficult project, an impossible deadline or a combination of both?

It would be interesting to find out how to decline such a project without hurting one's reputation in business.

Krieg

Yup, a couple while on work placement. Both didn't turn out too bad, I just put the head down, thought about all possibilities, did the research and was able to come up with a solution.

One of them, it was my first day, 5 mins on the job and I was shown some material. Manager tells me they have a major defect issue with this material and that its up to me to find a solution, I had 1 week to produce results. He then walks off to his office. I nearly brokedown

I think these projects are brilliant to get, you really do gain personal development and feel bloody great after the project is done.

spideog7

Unless you fail!

Such is the nature of research, if there wasn't any chance of it not working then it'd just be work. 'Research' (imho) implies a possibility that all your hard work will fail to find any solution better than existing ones, which is why I have developed a disdain for it, particularly when the final aim is not to implement anything.

con1982

You have to be honest with your boss/client.

Request other staff to work with you as a team. Tell boss/client that this project is important and producing results is your goal. If needs be tell boss/client what hours you intend to work, ie 9am - 9pm Monday to Saturday/Sunday (I don't believe seven days makes sense ever, unless its for optical reasons and not results). If possible propose staged reports/output, ie next Friday I will have A ready for you to review by Monday I will have B ready, etc.

The worst thing to do is to tell boss/client the day the critical project is due that you are behind.

mawk

the poor operators get unreasonable targets all the time. The managers look at the numbers needed, add on about 75% and tell the operators to magically find extra hours in the day to build the extra units. At least thats how it usually appears to me. Its pretty unfair with a temporary contract hanging over their heads

Turbulent Bill

experiMental wrote: »

I just wonder, has any student or a professional out there actually been given a really difficult project, an impossible deadline or a combination of both?

It would be interesting to find out how to decline such a project without hurting one's reputation in business.

Welcome to my world ! 'Difficult' and 'due yesterday' are standard practice...

The key is to stage the work (with deadlines at each milestone) and be conservative with the time/effort required. By their nature, it's very difficult to state accurately how long a new/complex project will take, simply because you haven't done it before. You can, however, break it into much simpler stages and review as you go. Then if you need extra help or time, at least this is spotted early.

The only thing people should expect is best-effort. You're much more likely to hurt your reputation by over-promising and under-delivering.