I guess we really just differ in that I don't think the "when" is necessarily the most important thing. It's just as much a part of the negotiation as the what,

I guess we really just differ in that I don't think the "when" is necessarily the most important thing. It's just as much a part of the negotiation as the what, how etc; it's just one dimension of many. It's often, but not always, the key driver. But you don't seem to be the kind of lazy manager that this article talks about. If you're OK to say that the date is the most important thing, and we understand that this might mean we have to sacrifice features or quality or whatever, then that's perfectly reasonable. It's an explicit trade off that you can communicate clearly to your team. But all too often, we're told that we need to have N features in T time, and when it's delivered half assed and full of bugs, well that's our fault. And I think that's the essence of lazy management, because it's really just trying achieve success through the force of will, which IME doesn't work very often.