The Importance of Aligning Authority with Responsibility (2010)

This brings back nightmares I had from working at Microsoft (2009).

As a PM; responsibility without authority was the job description. Hallway estimates and schedule chicken was 70% of the job. And the there was stack ranking...

No argument that reliable estimation is hard.

I think organizations that find conflict at the estimation stage are actually suffering from a shortage of design. For complex projects, design means R&D, and setting deadlines based on unfinished research can lead to failure or ballooning schedules.

this is why i stopped accepting "delegation" [of responsibility of course as it has never been delegation of managerial authority and salary/bonus] from my managers long ago :)