Silent Conversation tells classic stories, poems and haiku in an interactive way, inspired by Walter Savage Landor's motto What is reading but silent conversation?. They are presented as levels where the player controls a small line (similar to a text prompt) to go through the winding words.
I found an old note that contained a project to write a haiku every day. My project started in December 2018 and ended promptly in January 2019. The themes included work, baking, and difficulty finding nice fabric.
In software development deadlines are a necessary evil. It is important to understand when they are necessary, and it is important to understand why they are evil.
Estimation: When estimating engineering work a substantial time investment is required by an engineer in order to get an accurate estimate.
Misaligned Incentives: There is an incentive to lie and give estimates much longer than the feature is truly expected to take.
Low Morale: Deadlines are likely to be missed often. Repeated failure has a cost to the morale of the team.
Micromanagement: Deadlines are wielded by middle managers as a whip to harass and annoy engineers working on features.
High Stress: When engineers feel the pressure of other stakeholders holding deadlines over their heads it creates an environment of high stress.
High Turnover: On teams with high turnover rates the best engineers have an easy time finding new work and leave quickly, the worst engineers have a difficult time finding work and remain. This selects for a lower quality team over time.
The resolution is simple. Never have internal deadlines. Operate on a prioritized and ordered list of features. Estimate only when necessary to prioritize and do so in a t-shirt sizing way. Trust your engineers and they will begin to love their work. Engineers who love their work are happy and productive.