I work better when I have a deadline, but i also expect my manager to allow for slippage if something is wrong with the product. Currently we have an issue whe

I work better when I have a deadline, but i also expect my manager to allow for slippage if something is wrong with the product. Currently we have an issue where we are telling the customer that we need a 4 week pilot to make sure that when real data comes in it behaves as we expect, and so we can get back to providers on how to fix their data. If you go live with only synthetic data ever going through your product then you are asking for trouble. They are trying to negotiate that down to 2 weeks. Why? so their KPIs are met? Maybe it's because we are external, and if it fails they can blame us for the problem rather than them nickle and diming over a couple of weeks. I want to consult in a different sector after this :/