what’s the best way to go about telling your manager a deadline they promised is unreasonable/almost impossible

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Come with facts and solutions. We have X number of people to do Y number of hours of work before Z date. Talk about if any of the people are split on other projects so you really only have part of their time. To get this done we'll need A number of additional people or extend the due date to B.

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When did it become everyone else’s business to manage except the managers? Knowing your staff, knowing their workload, and creating project plans is LITERALLY YOUR JOB. The culture of pushing shit down and then telling staff it’s their job to “manage upward” is the biggest crock of shit in public accounting. Just like it’s not my job to encourage you to review work papers I told you about two weeks ago, it is also not my job to ensure you are actually managing a project.

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I’ve had to do this recently. Depends on your relationship with the manager. I straight up told my manager that it’s impossible to complete unless we get xxx to help out. I think if you communicate your concerns and offer a counter-solution, there should be no issues. The issue comes when people just complain that there is “too much work” with no explanation why, or how it will be solved.

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What PWC said. If you are going to tell me you can't meet a deadline, I want you to explain to me in detail why that isn't possible with a well thought out plan to meet the deadline at a later date. Offer up solutions, not just problems.

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Thanks guys will definitely take your suggestions in mind for my approach. I appreciate it

Depends on your lead time. If you had months, you should be keeping them up to date and they should be checking in which would let them hopefully realize it won’t happen. If it’s too quick of a turnaround, communicate and let them contribute. It’s their job to meet the expectation they set. It’s your job to communicate

I built an excel outlining how many hours (conservative estimates, with no hiccups) it would take to do each task, and showed that even working 16 hour days wouldn’t get it done in time. Showing them the evidence with numbers really helps, if it’s something you can easily quantify.

KPMG 1 amen!

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