I like how they say "no earlier than the forth quarter" in their announcement. Though it may not inspire confidence in a deliverable date, I might start trying to use the turn of phrase at my work.
It's a common way of describing deadlines in the aerospace industry, since a lot can go wrong with large complex engineering projects in the physical world. It's usually abbreviated to NET.
The Hacker's Dictionary says (by way of recommending The Soul of a New Machine by Tracey Kidder)
> This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle. It is an amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset -- although largely the hardware hacker -- done by a complete outsider. It is a bit thin in spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to the serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what day-to-day life can be like -- the fun, the excitement, the disasters. During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the company, leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: "I am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season."
This is perfect timing. I've just been told to communicate a significant project delay to a customer. 'Next quarter' sounds a lot better than 'months, not weeks'. Thanks heaps.
Due to unforeseen events impacting developer velocity, we experienced some slippage while burning down feature development on the critical path. Needless to say this will be reflected in our Sprint planning going forward and we’ve already added an Epic to track the remaining work needed to unblock the remaining tasks.
it may not inspire confidence in a deliverable date.
Maybe not, but it has other qualities. The prashing does seem to convey that if your boss really think about it, Q4 is very early. He's lucky that it isn't Q3 of the following year. Try it. Report back.