Don't listen to engineer estimates. Instead, promise aggressive estimates to your own boss. Artificial urgency is the best because the deadline is only to impre

Don't listen to engineer estimates. Instead, promise aggressive estimates to your own boss. Artificial urgency is the best because the deadline is only to impress the bosses, not for any real customer. Later when the deadlines slide by a mere 2 weeks, blame the engineer saying that the time given to them was "generous". Use performance ratings as a tool to set them up for failure, but only after getting the guarantee of a backfill headcount.