No Extensions. No Exceptions.

Why I am a Stickler for Deadlines for Student Instructional Design Projects

​The idea of telling my students that “there can be no deadline extensions for any reason” for a major course project is counterintuitive to how I approach teaching and assessment in most of my courses. 

I am usually fairly flexible with extension requests, especially for individual assignments that do not impact the progress of others in the course. I just ask that my students notify me in advance, if at all possible, if they need an extension. I do that so that I can keep track of their progress, and help them achieve their learning goals as effectively as possible. In most cases, mastery of the learning objectives is the priority, even if it takes a little longer for some students to get there. But, there are exceptions.

An Exception to the Rule?

​One big exception to my ability to offer some flexibility with project deadlines is an instructional design and development project, such as that outlined in Everyday Instructional Design (Power, 2023). That’s because such projects are designed to emulate real-world ID processes. In the real world of instructional design, other stakeholders are impacted by your ability to manage project timelines, and “deliver the goods” by specific dates.

• Collaborators cannot move forward with their pieces of the project if you miss key milestones.
• Peers cannot proceed with their own projects if they do not receive requested feedback on time.
• Real courses begin at set times (according to school term start dates), and students must have access to their courses on those dates.

​In the case of the ID project outlined in Everyday Instructional Design, I tell my students to treat their projects like a real-world ID contract. I give them a number of milestones along the way:

• Project Proposal
• Storyboarding/Blueprinting
• Module Development
• Peer Feedback on ID Projects in Development (from an instructional designer’s perspective)
• Final Project Revisions
• Pilot Testing (with a random group of classmates assigned to act as students)
• Peer Feedback from a Student’s Perspective
• Final Project Report

​There is some flexibility with some of these milestones, just like there would be in a real-world project. In the project management world, we call this flexibility “lead time” (Gurnov, 2024). But, there are also dependencies between the various milestones (Boeding & Blanchard, n.d.), as well as hard milestones or deadlines. Pilot testing begins at 12:01 am on the first day of Week 11 of our 13-week course. No exceptions. It is treated as the “start of the academic term” at a real school. Whatever is ready is ready, and no substantive changes are permitted to projects during pilot testing. That would skew the feedback process. It would also violate important instructional design principles, creating chaos and confusion for students. 

Playing with Lead Time

It is possible to offer some degree of flexibility with student assignment submissions for some of the milestones of these types of projects. Project proposals and blueprinting assignments are individual work. They do not impact other students in the course. So, a few extra days does not hurt… much. But, when you have a fixed timeline for the delivery of your final product, every extra day to reach one milestone reduces the lead time for the remaining stages of the project.

​This Gantt chart demonstrates the ideal timeline for proceeding through this type of ID project:

Figure 1: Ideal ID Project Timelines and Milestones

​These next Gantt charts illustrate what happens when you delay early milestones. Some milestones, such as the deadline for providing peer feedback during the first review cycle, reduce the lead time your classmates then have remaining to complete revisions to their own projects ahead of pilot testing (which is a fixed point in time).

Figure 2: Impacts of Missed Individual Milestones

Figure 3: Impacts of Missed Collaborative Milestones

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Video Overview

​The following video summary was generated from the text of this blog post using NotebookLM (Google, 2026):

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TL: DR

​Long story short, when it comes to ID projects that involve designing, developing, and pilot testing simulated online learning courses, the process is as important – if not more so – than the final product. No one is going to develop a perfect online module the first time around. ID’s skills with that get better with time and experience. At this stage, I’m more concerned with my students understanding the process, the importance of communication and collaboration, and the importance of meeting stakeholder timelines!

References

Association for Talent Development (2026). What is a Gantt chart? https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/gantt-chart/

Boeding, D. & Blanchard, S. (n.d.). 8.3 Dependencies. Project Management Basics. Kirkwood Community College. https://kirkwood.pressbooks.pub/projectmgmtbasics/chapter/dependencies/

​Google (2026, March 17). No Extensions. No Exceptions. [AI-generated video]. NotebookLM [Video generator]. https://notebooklm.google.com/

Google (2026). NotebookLM [Small Langauge Model AI application]. https://notebooklm.google.com/

Gurnov, A. (2024, August 21). What are Leads and Lags in Project Management? Project Management Guide. https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-are-leads-and-lags-project-management/

​Power, R. (2023). Everyday Instructional Design: A Practical Resource for Educators and Instructional Designers. Power Learning Solutions. ISBN: 978-1-9993825-8-2. https://pressbooks.pub/everydayid/