Not quite what you are asking but related: Many years ago my boss handed me the notes that he had made in a meeting with a customer and asked me to work out a p

Not quite what you are asking but related: Many years ago my boss handed me the notes that he had made in a meeting with a customer and asked me to work out a project plan to create the hardware, drawings, software, etc. I did that and gave it to him. The next day he called me into his office and told me that he and the customer had already agreed a delivery date and that I had to edit the plan so that it would be delivered on that date. That date was two months earlier than my estimate, 20% less elapsed time. I tried to argue that we didn't have the necessary resources (software developers, hardware development, circuit board design and manufacturing, prototyping, etc.) to do it any faster but he insisted. So in the absence of any way to cut the time in a way that really made sense I just cut about 20% off each of the items on critical path of the Gantt chart and gave it back to him. He seemed happy then but he was much less happy when we delivered on time and under budget according to my original estimate.