mediumScenarioBehaviouralMidSeniorStaff
Sales needs a delivery date for something you have not finished discovery on. What do you commit to?
5 min readUpdated 2026-08-15
Answer
Short answer
Find out what the date is being used for, then commit to something you can actually control — a timeboxed discovery end, a date for the date, or a narrow first slice — and never issue a single-point estimate for scope that is still undefined.
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Likely follow-ups
- The customer's procurement cycle closes in six weeks and will not reopen. Does that change it?
- Your engineering lead gives you a date you do not believe. What do you do with it?
- How do you handle the same request when it comes from your CEO in a public channel?
- What would you put in the contract, and what would you keep out of it?
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