Deadlines, Not Necessarily a Good Thing?
It was rare, at least with my college experiences, to have a professor waive the deadline for a major paper or project for any academic reason. By academic, I mean the one or two times that I found a new resource or experiment later in the process, information that produced a conflict with my initial position.
It seems that every professor saw such a request as a sign that I simply had not started the assignment in a timely manner. In their eyes, I had simply run out of time more from dereliction of duty than the development of any new insights.
Not only did my requests for a push for a later time result in a pledge that my grade would be adjusted if I failed to meet the initial due date, it was also immediately accompanied by a short lecture on the importance of meeting deadlines, particularly when one gets outside of the academic world.
The theory was, “in the real world” deadlines were an important part of life and meeting those deadlines was considered to be non-negotiable.
New Study
The importance of deadlines appears to be overstated according to a study by Harvard researchers Daniel Carpenter and Justin Grimmer. In “The Downside of Deadlines (PDF),” it appears that when it comes to the FDA and drug approvals, deadlines are a significant problem, particularly when a payment structure is connected to the deadline process.
The study offers a very technical look at FDA drug approval variations. But the bottom line is that imposing deadlines results in a finished product that may not meet the expectations set forth: “as in my project is done but the quality could be improved if I had more time to work further.”
Within the study, deadline bonuses or pay tied to deadlines will in fact decrease the time taken to review a case. But the critical finding of the study involved the application of deadline bonuses and the subsequent error rates.
Not too surprisingly, as the time to review a case decreased, the propensity for error increased. Within the drug approval process, such a situation could prove to be extremely serious.
Approving drugs that are not safe is the last thing the FDA wants to do. Yet, at the same time, reviewing drugs quickly may well allow patients access to a beneficial treatment in a timelier manner.
I must acknowledge that the study does not state that deadlines are a net negative in terms of the welfare of society. As the study notes, the “benefits from speeding up regulatory decisions may outweigh the costs of added error” for those cases where early approval of those drugs that would have been approved anyway reach patients sooner.
Still, the study indicates that the imposition of deadlines upon an agency’s decision-making process may render the agency’s decision-making more variable in the long run. Moreover the study suggests that inserting bonuses into the process “can generate greater administrative error.”
Ultimately, when it comes to the issue of deadlines and decision-making, the jury is out as to what is the best method for dealing with the issue. But it does beg the question:
In what instances should a deadline be imposed upon an agency?
A Feeling of Vindication
Needless to say, I have embraced this study as evidence that my requests during my undergraduate years were in fact valid. I even toyed with sending my professors a link to the study.
But I soon realized that unless I spent countless hours reviewing my initial request with them and the course I was taking at the time that neither of them would likely have a clue as to what I was talking about.
Then again, perhaps those of you currently involved in the process can make use of this little tidbit if necessary. Be sure to use it responsibly – it is not an indictment of the deadline concept, only that in some instances, deadlines and not lack of effort are the basis for a less than stellar final product.
