Having spent far too much time in desk jobs, I can reveal the truth.
All projects initially predict a month for a decision point. They then revert to predicting a season (eg Summer), then as the faceless Ba***** still cannot make a decision the targets become early 2006 or late 2006 (i.e. 6 month chunks).
Naturally they then become (if they are still in the future) years (without any further definition). Finally there is the option of describing an event as happening in an 'epoch', which I have failed to get a precise definition of, but appears to be a rolling 5 year timeframe.
While I am in the mood for disclosing secrets of a staff officer, I have also noted the politician’s way of claiming good news several times over:
First time - when we're thinking of an idea,
Second time - when we lay a draft of an idea on the table,
Third time -when we put a proposal forward,
Fourth time - when we accept a proposal in principle,
Fith time - when we put out to tender,
Sixth time - when we accept a preferred bidder,
Finally the awarding of a contract.
Of course the process can be stopped at any time in first 6 stages without loss of face, yet claimed as a major milestone for good news.
This may be stating the bleedin' obvious but the number of times I read posts on this forum when people accept any of the first 6 phases as gospel leads me to believe that
PR is not well understood in the services.