"The leaders mentioned in the orginal post are military leaders. But the same behaviours can be found in our commercial leaders." Absolutely, leadership is leadership. The big thing IMO about military leadership is that the militaries of world have a long history in studying leadership and determining what works and how it scales. Great post!

Glen, I definitely agree re: the need for business sense in general and customer-centricity in particular. Conducting "experiments" on their customer's dime without the customer's knowledge is unprofessional. Likewise treating the customer's needs as irrelevant and inconvenient. That's my point re: negotiating estimates: any estimate given in good faith should be stood behind (barring a change in scope or understanding of what's being asked for). Negotiating the estimate absent one of those circumstances tells me that there was no factual basis for the original one. I'm not sure it's a secret, but I definitely agree that any iterative method will can cost more. I suppose it's a matter of whether the final cost after iterations exceeds what was spent under the traditional model after overruns. This is why I support an Enough Design Up Front style over both BDUF and No Design Up Front. Challenges will emerge, making BDUF a loser, but with NDUF you do too much unnecessary iteration refactoring for circumstances you should have been aware of. Dogmatism fails on both ends of the spectrum.

Indeed...during the time I was going 'round with Ron Jeffries over #NoEstimates, I specifically addressed the topic of negotiating estimates (https://genehughson.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/negotiating-estimates/). If I estimate something as a 5 and the client says it needs to be a 3, then either the scope needs to change or my understanding of why it's a 5 needs to change. Changing my estimate without either of those circumstances says that I'm just pulling numbers out of the air. Vendors might have a reason for using a loss leader, but the estimate's still a 5, just priced like a 3.

If only Billy Shakespeare had heard of #NayEstimates...then Bardolph could have suggested some real mischief.

congratulations!