Working to a fixed deadline is not wrong, but it must be acknowledged that something will have to give. We all know we can't squeeze 10 pounds of rock into a 5-pound bag. All the runners are in prime form, ready to go. Absurd, but not unlike a lot of software development projects I've seen. Product Management wants the product out in time to grab the majority of the market share.
Development wants the scope frozen so that they have some hope of finishing on time.
Quality wants sufficient focus on early-phase assessment. Test wants a product that works adequately. What everyone ideally wants is to release a product of sufficient depth and quality, in a reasonable time, at a reasonable cost, to make money. To achieve this, everyone needs to work from the same page and make reasonable tradeoffs between the different viewpoints, all of which are necessary for success. Hall of Fame .