[thsealienbstrds]

I don't believe that not setting a deadline is the solution. There are definitely software engineers who will happily change their designs an infinite amount of times if you let them.

> The testers keep running into situations where things don't seem to be right, luckily your product manager is happy to defer most issues raised unless it is a real "show stopper," as Jeff loves to exclaim.

That might have been the critical mistake. Jeff should not have done that. He should have insisted on lots of feedback loops during the project. He should have put more effort into convincing himself that the product is of sufficient quality.

As for the developers, they should have made it clear to Jeff: if he's not allocating resources to convince himself that the product is of sufficient quality, he shouldn't be mad at them when in the end the product doesn't work.