A deadline by which a project ''must'' be completed by, otherwise the project/product is not viable and might as well not be undertaken in the first place.

Sometimes legitimate, sometimes used as a negotiating ploy to get designers to reduce their estimates, with the corresponding expectation that they will work additional (unpaid) overtime to meet the reduced estimate.

Examples of legitimate MarketingWindow''''''s.

* A contractual obligation to deliver by a certain date.
* A legal requirement with a hard deadline.
* Need to deliver product to meet a particular selling season (i.e. Christmas)

Examples of questionable MarketingWindow''''''s

* "Marketing feels that we need it."  Ask why.
* "We need revenue from the project this fiscal year to meet our forecast."  That may be true; but that's not the design team's problem.  (At least, it shouldn't be).  CountingTheChickensBeforeTheyHatch is generally unsound (but all-too-common) management practice.
* "The competition is coming out with their project on that day".  Usually not a hard deadline.

Remember--a MarketingWindow, to be legitimate, is a ''hard deadline''.  A good test of such a deadline is to ask what happens if the project is a day late (or a week, for some suitable short time period), vs. a day/week early.  If the cost of that day is immense, far greater than the benefit of coming in a week early, you may have a hard deadline.  If the cost of the day is simply one day's worth of lost orders and additional labor expense; that isn't a hard deadline.

See also NegotiateEstimates.