Driving engineers to an arbitrary date is a value destroying mistake

An Article by Gandalf Hudlow
Image from iism.org on 2021-11-17 at 6.15.52 PM.jpeg

What happens when you apply date pressure to software engineers working on high value software projects? The engineers will focus on delivering Something™ by the Date™! This fatal flaw results in delivery of a Something™ full of chaos and features that nobody really wants or needs.

  1. ​The Thing-deadline calculus​
  2. ​The value-destroying effect of arbitrary date pressure on code​
  3. ​Deadlines are bullshit​

"Whether it takes 2 rounds or 10 rounds of estimate squashing, most teams eventually capitulate and figure out what date is politically acceptable. They do this so they can go back to work and stop trying to predict the future with insufficient information."