Lets be honest, we all get asked this question, even 5 year old kids ask this on car journeys. 

So why on earth wouldn’t a business owner, investing thousands of pounds in development ask the same?

And why do we get so stressed when we are asked this? Because we know that the estimate has a cost associated with it, and that slippage could have an impact on colleagues and customers in other ways too. 

At the end of the day, we want to make people happy, not ruin their day. So, what to do? 

For ‘the business’, be transparent and base any estimates on facts, identify risks and how to solve them. Then give them all of this in a format that they can understand.

For ‘the team’, include them in the planning process, make sure that they are bought into any plan/proposed date, again base everything on factual information and document any risk/caveats. Review before submitting to stakeholders

At the end of the day, ‘the business’ and ‘the team’ have pretty much the same needs, they want confidence that something can be delivered and that once delivered all will be well.