So many years of software development and we just haven't figured out a way to communicate project timelines cleanly across all parties. If leadership hears a project is going to take one year, what they actually hear is two years and panic, because that just won't fly. Management realizes this and says 6 months so they can win the project. Developers panic because they know it can't be done in 6 months, but management doesn't tell them in the hope that they rush and pull it through ahead of time. In the end the project most likely takes a year, leadership is happy but don't miss out on the opportunity to grumble about overshooting timelines which management aptly pass down to the poor developers who feel hard done by all of this. It's an unfortunate game of deception, mistrust and double-guessing which has no bearing on the outcome but to add some additional stress to everyone involved, and we just can't seem to get out of it.
