On 99% of the projects I've been involved with: Boss: So you can do <anything> in two weeks then? Me: No, what I just talked about is a multi-month endeavor.

On 99% of the projects I've been involved with: Boss: So you can do <anything> in two weeks then? Me: No, what I just talked about is a multi-month endeavor. The reasoning behind this is probably formed from a multitude of influences. Executive desire, manager's attempts to look good, and a complete lack of comprehension of what building software is about all rank high on the list. The one I, for the life of me, cannot understand is why programmers insist on pushing the "I can hack that together in 48 hours" mythology. Surely it has had an effect on the management psyche and influenced the mental math used to conclude that the maximum time it should take any feature to be developed is fourteen days.