[majormajor]

> This is all under the generous assumption that your deadlines are actually very important in the business and plans will have to be shifted if they're not met because of a harsh business reality. Otherwise it's your fault for allowing the cost of deadlines to be incurred in a team where all they will do is hinder morale, add bureaucracy and reduce productivity.

As far as most dev teams are concerned, timelines are less important for the business than they are to each other.

People don't like it when they are constantly waiting on person X to finish their part of the work. (That's a good way to know you've really dropped the ball as manager: the other team members start asking YOU what's going on with the other person.)