[papito]

This is a combination of management not asking for input, pulling a deadline out of their asses, and engineers chronically low-balling their own estimates (while the managers think it's the opposite).

My pet peeve is when a deadline is a "round" date. 1st of the month, 1st of the year. WHY? Your users don't give a shit. If you are not publicly committed to a launch date, which you should never be, until your product is ready.

That said, internal deadlines are a moronic thing to have. These should be goals.