I haven't seen this issue arise very often in software
No? Maybe not if you're a software-only company. But for pretty much every hardware (a gadget, a car, a rocket, whatever), the software is part of it and it aint working until the software is.
If you don't want your product to be held shipping because the software isn't ready, you better have some way of estimating when it's going to get done so you can either trade features, personell, or even just knowing that there's no point rushing the hardware because it'll be done way before the code anyway.
No? Maybe not if you're a software-only company. But for pretty much every hardware (a gadget, a car, a rocket, whatever), the software is part of it and it aint working until the software is.
If you don't want your product to be held shipping because the software isn't ready, you better have some way of estimating when it's going to get done so you can either trade features, personell, or even just knowing that there's no point rushing the hardware because it'll be done way before the code anyway.