Comment by 1penny42cents

Regarding the “realism” proposed here, that leadership defines what shipping means: there’s a good faith and bad faith interpretation.

The bad faith interpretation is that this is corrupt and misaligned.

The good faith interpretation is that each leader has context and motivations that are important.

The right interpretation depends on the exact circumstance.

Getting leaders aligned on the right definition of “shipped” is a separate problem to the one described here, and it’s not the project lead’s direct responsibility. It’s the responsibility of the leadership team, the CEO, and the board.

But the realism proposed in the post is useful for project leads. Meeting leadership’s expectation is not necessarily corrupt, and if it is corrupt, it can be improved by directly discussing and negotiating what it means to ship a project.