The typical stereotype situation between sales and development/project management/delivery/support is that sales will sell everything at all costs just to close the deal (take some bonus) and leave the rest of the world grasping for breath of all the thing promised. The subject was triggered with me by a recent posting of Pawel Brodzinski.
It reminded me of a discussion I had some months ago, with some people on a board: “Do you sell everything at all cost?” I’ll post the responses. Feel free to add you own 
salcorp: the worst ones are the deadline sales… “I’m positive our team can complete your 1-year project in a couple of months. There is no need for me to talk to them, lets just close the deal.”
rita: As far as I can tell the reasoning is: “just get the order, they will complain anyway, but at least we have the cash, and we’ll handle the complaints afterwards.” Works great for those who doesn’t have to handle the complaints!
Bernard: In what scenario? For commercial software, a company can take one of two tacks: Vaporware announcements or complete secrecy until the software is ready for market. Obviously, with vaporware, there are risks of announcing features and/or time tables for delivery that may not come to pass. Microsoft is famous for this. On the other end, I know of companies (mine included) that do not advertise new products until they are completed and ready for market.
For custom software, I would expect the final contract (and price) to be decided after a detailed specification has been agreed upon by developer and client. The delivery time line may still be a risk factor, but the features should be locked down!
Erwin: I’ve seen many, many such examples. Since I always was put in the sales team for the delivery side, this has given some headaches.
ross: Most programmers would probably regard sales/marketing people as the “necessary evil”. There are very few software that sell themselves. I would add a third category to Bernard’s two (commercial, custom); in-house. Most small to medium businesses that I have worked for have internal needs for software and these are “sold” and “bought” by the relevant managers (and yes they may have been sales people before promotion). Usually these sales reflect the cost-center or profit-center culture of the organisation…but that is just the story of the two pockets in the same pair of pants; false accounting. The way to stop the sales people underselling your project is to have a strong general manager who provides the product’s transfer price to the marketing department. It is then the marketing manager’s responsibility to keep his team
profitable.
salcorp: By the way… I always complain about the sales dep. but its good to walk on thier shoes sometimes… Last year I did a 3 month software for them and I gotta tell ya… they are dead before they hit 40. And partial fault is from the company´s management team that expects sales quotas and client development at sometimes unrealistic rates.
svenkatesh: I think the topic is too general in its assertion. Sales (and consequently cash) is the life blood of a firm. So its essential that cash is brought in. Sales people understand this (either directly or by a sales VP whose job is on the line if cash is not brought in.) However, a long gut-wrenching project with both customer and vendor venting bile on what was agreed or defaulted can be pretty detrimental to the company in the long run. The key to ending this debate is to figure out a good marketing / operations information sharing process. I know its not that simple. We have been trying to figure it out at my company for a while now. But I know that the answer lies in communication.
clifford: Lets put it this way, more than communication, I think its co-ordination that helps both the sales and development team to come to an understanding on how much can be vapourwared and how much can we realistically promote to the masses on the product that will be developed. Its a basic principal that Microsoft planned to promote by way of initial introduction in the form of an announcement and then later the product emerges when the market dies out (thought not completely) waiting to see the release.
