I can imagine the client throwing a dart at a calendar and saying "This will be the deadline!"

New product idea just dropped...

@Demolishun Yes! Cryptographically secure random deadline generator, and the accompanying random estimate generator. As a service, obvs.

@donkulator I was thinking more about a digital dartboard. It would be a technical challenge.

Throw first dart for the number.
Throw the second dart for days/weeks/months.

From what I hear: some stakeholders are fully aware that they ask for arbitrary deadlines - but they do it intentionally to start a discussion - assuming that this will ”get the discussion going faster” and force the dev team to think about it and respond saying if it is not possible and why - ans suggest a new date

@jiraTicket or they do this to cover up the fact that they don‘t know what they are doing.

@Lensflare Yeah. I think in many cases it is willful ignorance. Or basically just a confession that the deadline dates do not really matter - it's just a part of bureaucracy that they need to insert some date into a Roadmap for their next presentation. And it doesn't really matter if that deadline date is missed. The presentation just has to be written.

A classic example that comes to mind is whenever it's close to christmas a bunch of deadlines will be set to "week before christmas" - and they will not be updated even if conditions change.

(But sometimes they are nice enough to say "Either we make the deadline or we don't. We'll see")