In my 30+ years of developing software I’ve seen maybe three projects complete on time...of course the only three that did were run by me!
Great point.
I know a programmer who farmed & ranched on the side, lost his land etc. during the Carter years. Struggled along many years writing inventory/transport software for Cenex and a wholesale food company or two.
Someone he’d gone to school with passed along a Defense Dept fuel-tracking project, 90-day deadline, my buddy gets in done in a month. DoD doesn’t understand-—seems they really haven’t ever seen a project actually ‘finished’.
They send him another, then another-—after six months they fly him to Washington to give him a handshake and a plaque for outstanding performance.
Fast-forward ten years and the guy has a great big home in the country, three or four thousand acres of pasture and cropland and 500 head of Grade-A angus cattle.
A tip o’ the old Stetson to him and to you.