True, just came up with it off the top of my head. I suppose it is possible to be too detailed in such questions. Point being it at least makes it sound like the company was doing the right things and got hit out of left field, vs stepping in a pile of their own making and making you responsible for fixing it.

Perhaps a more innocent miscommunication like the customer failed to clearly communicate requirements, and it was just discovered in an email conversation that they were expecting and as-of-yet un-implemented To-Do List App in the current release, which is shipping tomorrow/this week/etc. I've experienced situations like that before, not sure how applicable it is to your business.

Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be along the lines of, "You propose a to-do list app at a team meeting, and you want to demonstrate that it's a feasible product. However, you have a limited time box to ship it in. What do you reach for?" It lacks a bit of the urgency of the original question, but still comes with time constraints.

My original example is born of a decade of cynicism, and you're right that it could reflect poorly on the company. Thank you for the feedback, though in fact I'm happily unemployed right now.