A deadline by which a project
must be completed by, otherwise the project/product is not viable and might as well not be undertaken in the first place.
Sometimes legitimate, sometimes used as a negotiating ploy to get designers to reduce their estimates, with the corresponding expectation that they will work additional (unpaid) overtime to meet the reduced estimate.
Examples of legitimate
MarketingWindows.
- A contractual obligation to deliver by a certain date.
- A legal requirement with a hard deadline.
- Need to deliver product to meet a particular selling season (i.e. Christmas)
Examples of questionable
MarketingWindows
- "Marketing feels that we need it." Ask why.
- "We need revenue from the project this fiscal year to meet our forecast." That may be true; but that's not the design team's problem. (At least, it shouldn't be). CountingTheChickensBeforeTheyHatch is generally unsound (but all-too-common) management practice.
- "The competition is coming out with their project on that day". Usually not a hard deadline.
Remember--a
MarketingWindow, to be legitimate, is a
hard deadline. A good test of such a deadline is to ask what happens if the project is a day late (or a week, for some suitable short time period), vs. a day/week early. If the cost of that day is immense, far greater than the benefit of coming in a week early, you may have a hard deadline. If the cost of the day is simply one day's worth of lost orders and additional labor expense; that isn't a hard deadline.
See also
NegotiateEstimates.