A product can mean a team that build - an one off project - an imaginary product solving imaginary problem - A MVP that verifies a hypothesis and taking care

A product can mean a team that build - an one off project - an imaginary product solving imaginary problem - A MVP that verifies a hypothesis and taking care the whole customer journey - iteration and improvement of mvp - part(s) of customer journey - feature(s) Deadline means different thing to different team. As other comment point out, there are real deadlines. When not real, deadline is about a rthym, about a pacing, about expectation at different stage, rather than a specific expectation that by an arbitrary date everything will be "done done". And who's doing the estimation is as important as what the estimation is. In music, the time signature is to give expectation what pacing a piece is in. It is futile to pack more notes than the member can play. The job of the composer is to know what is within the possible realm of playability and to assemble a team that can handle it. You don't "push" a member, you understand the member. Same for software product building