Kevin estimates 5 hours, his manager stares at him and says "I don't think it's really 5 hours, we can do it in 3" and forces Kevin to revise his "estimate". He finishes in 10 hours, clearly justifies the overrun, but gets a negative performance review.
I've had discussions like this in the past, where people ask me "can we do it in 3 days instead of 5?" And I've found the easiest way to sell it to them is to ask which 40% of the feature set they would like me to remove from the deliverable?
Kevin estimates 5 hours, his manager stares at him and says "I don't think it's really 5 hours, we can do it in 3" and forces Kevin to revise his "estimate". He finishes in 10 hours, clearly justifies the overrun, but gets a negative performance review.