I'm a software developer, and I know this is a bit heretical to say, but I think sometimes we need to set goals that are overly ambitious so that we can work hard to meet them, even if we end up being late. I've been a contractor to a couple companies that didn't have real goals and there is this kinda easy going attitude that results in many things taking 4x as long as they could and often a lot more office politics as people spend more time jockeying for position than cranking out features or squashing bugs.