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> our PR firmed lined up exclusives with journalists on date X

That is the problem.

Wait for the product to get to an acceptable form, and then call the press in for tomorrow!

Getting a PR or marketing campaign up must be done in parallel to the dev work. It can take a few months to find the right journalists in the right publications , get their attention and get their time. On another note, some product launches are also times with fixed date events (Back to school (media industry), CES (Consumer electronics), any other expo in any other industry). it is key to time the dev deliverables. and if you need to chose between two features to dev, well, you need estimates as in inputs.

Estimates are not perfect, you should not spend 5 man days to plan 2 months of work. Planning can be done with guestimates and best effort and when done right, are super useful.

You don't always have that luxury.

Let's say you're developing a product and it will need to go though physical testing. You need to book a test facility fairly in advance.

Or sometimes you might have to guarantee a fix date to a customer for example.

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