Deadlines are real, but estimates are very inaccurate. The best you can do prioritise the important features. Then what gets released is what you have at the ti

Deadlines are real, but estimates are very inaccurate. The best you can do prioritise the important features. Then what gets released is what you have at the time. If you want to plan for real hard deadline with a fixed scope, you need to be giving it A LOT of time to account for unknowns and feedback cycles. I've worked in environments like you say, all they do is massively pad estimates. That's not accurate estimates, that's just hedging risk. Estimates should be taken with a pinch salt, then risk should be hedged. But they're separate things. You can't just massively hedge risk and say estimates are accurate. In fact that's more of an admission they're inaccurate.