As I've said a few times, I'm a year ahead of schedule on a project that is one year behnd schedule--I'm effectively two years ahead of the critical path on my project.
My project is divided into three releases. I've finished all of my work for release 1 and release 2. I just started work on release three a few weeks ago. I got an e-mail this morning explaining that all work on releases 2 and 3 is to be suspended immediately to concentrate on release 1. That's fine. That makes sense. Even though I'm ahead of schedule I do have to constantly talk to teams that are behind schedule to move my work forward. The bottom line is that I can continue working but I can't bother other teams who need to concentrate on release 1. Eventually I will hit a point where I can't move that work forward without bothering the behind-schedule teams. I actually hit that point this morning shortly after getting the e-mail.
To give you an idea, on one of my programs (my release 2 stuff), I wrote 12,000 lines of code that is now tested and ready to go. Another team of 20 people is responsible for writing the remaining 2,000 lines of code to make it all work and it has taken them MUCH longer to write much simpler code. I have three such programs and two are done. I can get work done very fast with a minimum of mistakes--mostly because I know what kinds of questions to ask upfront to avoid expensive rework later. Release 1 stuff has all work done and is ready to go.
I just got a second e-mail stating that Saturdays are now mandatory work days--no exceptions (except project managment, of course)--until the project is back on schedule. That's right, I'm supposed to come in on Saturday, but I'm not allowed to work on anything that I have outstanding. I can't even pitch in and help other teams. Other development is being done in Java and COBOL. I don't know Java or COBOL. I don't have the tools to work in Java or COBOL. So I'm supposed to come in on Saturday and do nothing because managment is unwilling to identify the teams that need to be there and the ones that would just get in the way.
Nope, instead they will punish everyone because some teams aren't getting their work done on time.