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>Second, if honoring customer promises were the number one priority, organizations wouldn't make them so casually and without figuring out what is possible. I

>Second, if honoring customer promises were the number one priority, organizations wouldn't make them so casually and without figuring out what is possible. I can't tell you how many times I asked, "who came up with this deadline?" and I get "someone in the sales team," or something like that.

long_time_gone 5y ago
The sales team works closest with people who will become customers, it’s not crazy for them to be plugged into a customers needs or priorities. That said, lots of sales people make promises first and figure out the details later which isn’t good business.
- wpietri 5y ago
  For sure. Any good product balances desire and possibility. Salespeople have a lot of data on desire; engineers on possibility. The problem isn't involving sales. It's not involving the engineers!
  - regularfry 5y ago
    Heavily sales-promise-driven product development is also bad for the company long-term. Saying yes to everything (for even small values of "everything") creates products that are just feature swamps, and not especially compelling at any one thing.
    - Closi 5y ago
      Depends on the company and sector - companies that aren’t flexible enough during the sales process fail to win business (particularly on the enterprise side) so there is clearly a trade off here.
willcipriano 5y ago
You are flying a plane over the Atlantic and you realize that you may not have enough fuel to make it to shore. Your options are: 1. Focus on flying the plane in a manner that uses as little fuel as possible not bothering to even glace at the fuel gauge, watching the air currents and gliding where possible. 2. Turn on autopilot and spend time and effort trying to calculate the fuel you have to see if you make it to shore before going back to flying as conservatively as possible. Number 2 feels better. Number 1 is more likely to end with a safe landing. If you have a deadline and won't be getting new resources any time soon, and what purpose does a estimate serve if you are already committed?
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  You could make a compromise. If you have a rough idea where you'll ditch, you can radio that to air traffic control and ships can be sent ahead of time so that when / if the ditching happens, they can to try to rescue people. Ships can act as bases for helicopters as well.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    What would the business version of that be? Update your Linkedin, do some LeetCode?
    - Gravityloss 5y ago
      In business, life goes on even if the project is late, there just has to be some accommodations. It's less painful the earlier it is known.
- afarrell 5y ago
  You’ve just made an analogy to a situation that ~never happens in complex profession which ~none of us have direct experience in at a professional level. Thats fine, but it doesn’t really help with reasoning. An estimate serves the purpose of allowing you to say “well the deadline is in 3 weeks and our best estimate is that this will take 9 weeks. Lets save ourselves the effort, cancel the project, and do something more profitable with our time. In your analogy, that would be the equivalent of… jumping out of the airplane mid-flight, confident that you can just ride brooms to Iceland because thinking of this as a life-or-death decision is incorrect.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    You don't really have a deadline in 3 weeks if you can make the choice to not do it. I was speaking to work that has already been committed to. Think things like changes in the law that you must adapt to or close the business.
    - 5y ago

long_time_gone 5y ago

The sales team works closest with people who will become customers, it’s not crazy for them to be plugged into a customers needs or priorities. That said, lots of sales people make promises first and figure out the details later which isn’t good business.

wpietri 5y ago
For sure. Any good product balances desire and possibility. Salespeople have a lot of data on desire; engineers on possibility. The problem isn't involving sales. It's not involving the engineers!
- regularfry 5y ago
  Heavily sales-promise-driven product development is also bad for the company long-term. Saying yes to everything (for even small values of "everything") creates products that are just feature swamps, and not especially compelling at any one thing.
  - Closi 5y ago
    Depends on the company and sector - companies that aren’t flexible enough during the sales process fail to win business (particularly on the enterprise side) so there is clearly a trade off here.

willcipriano 5y ago

You are flying a plane over the Atlantic and you realize that you may not have enough fuel to make it to shore. Your options are: 1. Focus on flying the plane in a manner that uses as little fuel as possible not bothering to even glace at the fuel gauge, watching the air currents and gliding where possible. 2. Turn on autopilot and spend time and effort trying to calculate the fuel you have to see if you make it to shore before going back to flying as conservatively as possible. Number 2 feels better. Number 1 is more likely to end with a safe landing. If you have a deadline and won't be getting new resources any time soon, and what purpose does a estimate serve if you are already committed?

Gravityloss 5y ago
You could make a compromise. If you have a rough idea where you'll ditch, you can radio that to air traffic control and ships can be sent ahead of time so that when / if the ditching happens, they can to try to rescue people. Ships can act as bases for helicopters as well.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  What would the business version of that be? Update your Linkedin, do some LeetCode?
  - Gravityloss 5y ago
    In business, life goes on even if the project is late, there just has to be some accommodations. It's less painful the earlier it is known.
afarrell 5y ago
You’ve just made an analogy to a situation that ~never happens in complex profession which ~none of us have direct experience in at a professional level. Thats fine, but it doesn’t really help with reasoning. An estimate serves the purpose of allowing you to say “well the deadline is in 3 weeks and our best estimate is that this will take 9 weeks. Lets save ourselves the effort, cancel the project, and do something more profitable with our time. In your analogy, that would be the equivalent of… jumping out of the airplane mid-flight, confident that you can just ride brooms to Iceland because thinking of this as a life-or-death decision is incorrect.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  You don't really have a deadline in 3 weeks if you can make the choice to not do it. I was speaking to work that has already been committed to. Think things like changes in the law that you must adapt to or close the business.
  - 5y ago