Friday deadlines

I am always astonished to hear a deadline has come down from on high, and it's been set to a "Friday". At first I thought perhaps I was some sort of super genius (well that's still possible) but wouldn't that be the absolute worst day of the week for a launch??

Reasons why Friday's are bad launch days (for web sites, and pretty much anything):

• Everyone has had a long week, and are exhausted at the end of Friday, and all want to go home and rest. People make mistakes when they are tired, and tend not to work as efficiently when they are thinking about all the wonderful plans they have for their weekend, none of which include being at work.
• What happens if something goes wrong? It either stays broken over the weekend, or the staff have to stay late on Friday plus possibly WORK all weekend. This messes up your relationship with your users, and your staff, a lose lose situation.
• People often take Friday as a vacation day. There is a chance, some of your staff won't even be there!

Recommendations: There are 4 other days of the week!
Personally my favorite go live date is a Tuesday. You set the deadline for finishing work on the Friday, spend Monday testing/final tweaking, then Tuesday morning you go live. This gives you all day Tuesday to iron out anything else that you didn't see on Monday, while it's early in the week, your staff is still fresh and not tired, and the chances of them cutting into personal time is extremely minimal.
Sometimes though these dates come from TPTB and you can't set Tuesday as your launch. Absolutely determined that it is "done" by Friday. This means you have to squash your timeline, and set the real deadline for Thursday. Have everything done, completely written and tested, then Friday MORNING go live. Spend the day ironing out any last minute bugs, and voila, everything is ready to go for a full weekend, and staff can enjoy it as they rightly deserve.

See how simple this is? It doesn't just work for web site launches either, it is plain out COMMON SENSE people. Think about it!

Sadly I know the only people who read this agree with me already *sigh*. Make a case to your bosses, use all the reasons I've posted and more that you think of!

BFN