With over 20 years leading software projects in tech, finance, and healthcare – I’ve witnessed firsthand how misalignment between product managers (PMs) and development (Dev) teams can quietly erode progress. What starts as a well-intentioned effort to deliver value often spirals into a game of blame where no one wins. This dynamic isn’t about bad actors or incompetence – it’s about patterns that emerge when expectations and execution drift apart. Here’s how it takes shape and how teams can shift from frustration to collaboration, turning challenges into opportunities for trust and success.
A Cycle That Starts with Promises and Pressures
It’s a familiar stage in a startup’s journey: demand swells for new enhancements as its product gains traction. PMs, tasked with shaping the company’s roadmap, turn to Dev teams for estimates to guide priorities and timelines. Dev teams, often stretched by limited historical data or juggling pressures within the org, provide timelines they believe are achievable. But reality soon kicks in. Estimates stumble – tripped up by unclear requirements, shifting priorities, or unexpected complexities. Deadlines slip, features lag, and frustration brews. No one meant to mislead – PMs sought clarity, and Dev teams aimed to deliver. Yet, the outcome is shared disappointment, setting off a reactive cycle where trust begins to fray.
The Blame Game Begins
It’s important to recognize that the blame game is not a one-sided affair. Dev teams may stretch their next estimates to sidestep past stumbles, quietly embedding buffers. A three-week task becomes five – not out of idleness but as a shield against surprises. PMs spot the padding and push back, questioning why everything drags in a startup that thrives on speed. The buffer, meant to ease risk, instead fuels doubt. When requirements lack detail – like a redesign with only a rough sketch – Dev teams might dig for clarifications, slowing the company’s momentum as a cautious reflex. Or they might commit to delivery but skimp on scope, expecting priorities to shift, leaving behind half-finished work that PMs find lacking. Tracking requirements traceability could help, but without it, the org’s success leans on personalities rather than processes, deepening the tangle.
Sometimes, the pressure prompts a quick fix: scaling the team. But in a lean startup, more hands don’t always help: newcomers need onboarding, coordination falters, and bugs multiply. Costs climb, yet progress stalls. These tactics shift focus from teamwork to self-protection, with PMs pressing for accountability and Dev teams guarding against blame. Both sides end up under fire, not just from company stakeholders but from friendly friction within the organisation as frustration spills over.
The Fallout: Mistrust and Misalignment
This cycle traps teams in a feedback loop of mistrust. PMs see Dev teams as slow or evasive, irritated by slipping timelines in a company racing to grow. Dev teams feel PMs miss the technical realities, piling on changes without grasping the effort in a startup stretched thin. Instead of uniting toward a shared goal, they pull apart, each reinforcing their own stance. Deadlines are missed, effort is wasted, and morale dips. The irony? Challenges that could strengthen teamwork drive division instead. Over time, this disconnect breeds disengagement, turnover, and inefficiency, hitting productivity, innovation, and customer satisfaction in an org where agility and unity are make-or-break.
Breaking the Cycle with Collaborative Buffer Management
This doesn’t have to be the norm. A transparent, collaborative approach can turn defensiveness into partnership, and it starts with rethinking how we estimate and buffer. A practical entry point is the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT), which uses optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic estimates to map uncertainty and pinpoint the critical path – the longest chain of dependent tasks driving the timeline. However, while the common Critical Path Method scatters buffers across individual tasks, often leading to padded estimates and blame, a better way emerges with Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM). Here, the fundamental shift comes: instead of hiding buffers in each step, teams consolidate them into a single project buffer at the end, managed together.
Unlike traditional approaches where Dev teams pad tasks and PMs argue over slack, CCPM pulls that safety net into one shared pool – say, 20% of the timeline – acting as a joint cushion. PMs bring the company’s business needs, like launch deadlines, while Dev teams flag risks, like third-party delays. Together, they size this buffer to protect the critical chain – the actual bottleneck – balancing pace and reliability across the org. This isn’t the usual task-by-task padding that invites scepticism; it’s a collective shield, cutting waste and aligning focus.
This buffer isn’t a free pass – it’s a proactive tool. PMs use it to set realistic stakeholder expectations, saying, “We’ve tapped 30% of our buffer due to a delay, but we’re on track.” Dev teams rely on it to maintain quality, avoiding rushed fixes that haunt a startup later. Transparency makes it work: a shared dashboard – Jira, Notion, or a spreadsheet – tracks buffer use. In bi-weekly syncs, they adjust – if it’s shrinking fast, PMs might tweak the scope, and Dev teams highlight risks early. If it holds steady, they might add polish together. The talk shifts from “who’s at fault” to “how do we keep this moving.”
Moving Forward Together
Software development in a startup is unpredictable – complex systems, shifting needs, and technical surprises make perfect estimates elusive. Struggles with trust are natural across any org. But they don’t have to define us. Starting with PERT to ground estimates, then shifting to Critical Chain’s shared buffer, realigns incentives with data both sides trust: feature value, development costs, maintenance burdens, priorities, and technical debt. Without that trust, no method holds. Circumstances differ, and other approaches – like agile sprints – can fit too. But the key isn’t one tool – it’s moving from blame to shared accountability. When teams transparently ditch defence for open dialogue, using a project buffer, mistrust fades. Challenges become a bond, not a wedge. As projects hit their mark with quality intact, frustration turns to momentum – and that’s when a company, and its team, truly win.
