Urgency and Focus
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but Urgency raises it to a whole other level. For example, there is nothing like a release date to seriously focus attention. Especially if the release date is co-ordinated across the entire organization, with Marketing, Sales, Support, Finance, the Board, and, well, everybody else involved — and dependent! — on the release (Mind you, this is not about unreasonable expectations (“ The entire code-base can be refactored by friday, yes? ”), that is entirely different issue, and if you have any agency at all, you should avoid it.)