In the software development industry, a death march is a
dysphemism or description for the end phase of a project when a hard deadline has to be met, often to meet an arbitrary ship date leaked to the press and/or the shareholders. Often if a project is off schedule due to mismanagement (as many are), said management will
ask team members to work especially grueling hours, weekends (sometimes with a straight face), or by attempting to "throw (enough) bodies at the problem" with varying results, often causing burnout. It is also common for a developer to subsist on
flat food while in the midst of a death march.
Bill Gates: The world wants and our shareholders need Vista by Christmas!
Steve Ballmer: We have had our developers on a
perma death march for the last three years
to ship it and need a few more monthes.
Bill Gates: Just drop development of all the useful features and leave the annoying ones!