How do you handle date and deadline pressures in Agile Environments?

A listener sends us his question on what to do if you are pressured in the early days of a project to commit to specific deliverables on certain dates

Remember that some projects reasonably require delivery commitments – especially those with regulatory, audit, or compliance expectations. These may not make great first experiments in Agility, because Agile requires flexible scope in order to work well with the philosophy

It is also perfectly normal for a business to want to make promises to its customers (and therefore demand them from its delivery teams)

Agile provides a better model that allows for continuous scope negotiation. This requires trust between product owner and team

Attitudes and beliefs, or ‘frames’ have to change in order for the ‘when by’ culture to change