Scott Adams has mined a rich mother-lode of irony for Dilbert in the endless “conflict” between project-management and engineering. (He consistently takes the engineer's point-of-view in his strip, while being a business management consultant himself.)

Both objectives have to be met at the same time:   the product has to be “definitely good enough,” and it has to hit the market and make money there, all at the same time and in a game where there's just no room for second place.

The need for all of these ingredients becomes most-obvious when it is also the most-painful, namely, when any one of these pieces is dysfunctional. Once again, Scott Adams created an on-screen character as a (highly dysfunctional) archetype of this-or-that role.

How do you know if your team is “dysfunctional?” Walk through your workplace on a Sunday when no one's there. Count the number of Dilbert cartoons you see posted, in the hallways, on the terminals and cubes. Notice carefully what each one is saying, because it's a bellweather as well as a silent, socially-acceptable form of protest.