[darklajid]

For me the division is mostly centered on quality.

The sales I'm working with want me to ship whatever, ship fast.

I want to ship quality.

Since money always wins, this usually ends with me giving in, feeling bad about it and .. blaming the sales people for being short-sighted/focused on the immediate return only.

[cturner]

Something to keep in mind about quality - sometimes programmers spend ages doing something in a way that seems like the right way, and the end result is either unimpressive, or a disaster. That destroys goodwill.

A project manager who had a history of working with unreliable developers may be drawn to a mindset of only trusting near wins, or even distrusting elegance-based arguments.

[brixon]

How many products (physical or virtual) have absolute quality? What is the price point and competitive advantage of your product? Software is no different than physical products in balancing quality with price. The only advantage software has is that we can improve the quality later.

If people buy your product because it has the fewest bugs and is more resilient when things go wrong then push hard on the sales team. But if your product gets sold due to it looking nice and having a few wiz bang features then give them some slack.