Deadlines

...should be set
by the person who has
    the most control over things,
        the most authority to enforce it, and
            the most to lose if it is missed.

The above was something I read when starting out as a designer nearly thirty years ago.

I am always amazed at the number of people, in the course of my career, who lord their authority over others, in making demands to get a job done, yet cannot keep their own house in order. I cannot tell you how many times a mid-level manager at my agency, has complained to me of a report that is delayed in going to press, when he cannot get his own staff to provide a correct manuscript. I've been in the position of watching a program analyst (what they call a mid-level Government bureaucrat for want of a better term) on the phone calling for substantive alterations to a job, even as it is being prepared to go to the printer. And these are the same idiots to whom that same manager gives promotions.

One day recently, I was going through some old material to throw away, and I found it in a printing company newsletter. In all these years, I have tried to find this maxim on the internet, and no search engine will find it.

Until now.
.