The good news: You can do something about it! Research shows that those of us who prefer to work under pressure throw the deadline out of control for the whole team. But these three simple tips can help you and your team achieve your goals.
A group of researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology has investigated the relationship between which time in a project period one prefers to put in the majority of one's work effort (early, in the middle or just before the deadline) and one's team's ability to meet deadlines. And the results are quite clear: Teams that work closest to the deadline exceed the deadline more often than teams that put in a greater part of the work effort earlier in the project period.
The Dutch researchers examined a group of students from a business school in the Netherlands during an 8-week period in which they had to solve two project tasks. During the study period, the students described their "pacing style" several times. That is when they do most of the work on a task. "Pacing style" can be seen as a continuum that extends from the so-called "early action" style, (starts early and finishes well before the deadline) to the "late action" style (does most of the work just before the deadline) . See the diagram below, which is an illustration of the five "pacing styles" that the students were asked to rate themselves against.
Source: Josette MP Gevers, Christel G. Rutte and Wendelien van Eerde:
Meeting Deadlines in Work Groups: Implicit and Explicit Mechanisms.
Groups that solved the task just before the deadline exceeded the deadline more often than groups that worked earlier in the project phase. Another interesting discovery was that even a single person with an "early action" style could influence the entire group's ability to reach the deadline in a positive direction.
In addition to the students' pacing style, the researchers also investigated the importance of reminding each other of the deadline, milestones and agreements made during the project for the groups' ability to meet the deadline. What the researchers call "temporal reminders". And here too, they saw a connection. Even in groups with a "late action" "pacing style", deadline achievement improved if group members talked about their deadline.
However, be aware that the researchers do not believe that one's "pacing style" is constant. Eg. they expect that a tight and important deadline will make everyone work equally concentrated.
Source: Josette MP Gevers, Christel G. Rutte and Wendelien van Eerde:
Meeting Deadlines in Work Groups: Implicit and Explicit Mechanisms.
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