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I agree that businesses need estimates, but the problem is the form they take. It's always "2 weeks", or maybe at a better place it'll be "2-3 weeks" both of w
by b_t_s 11y ago
I agree that businesses need estimates, but the problem is the form they take. It's always "2 weeks", or maybe at a better place it'll be "2-3 weeks" both of which are basically lies because they imply high confidence. What it really ought to be is "2 to 3 weeks with X% confidence" because there's an absolutely massive difference between "2 to 3 weeks at 90% confidence" and "2 to 3 weeks at 10% confidence and at every place I've ever worked they both get treated the same. The 10% confidence one might be roughly equivalent to "2 weeks to 6 months" with an implied high confidence but good luck giving an estimate with that kind of range.
- tyingq 11y agoThat seems completely reasonable, and provides what a business would want...metrics to make decisions on where to spend money. The tack of the article was "Estimates can't be done". Which is silly. It presents this analogy: "would it really have made sense to ask Einstein how long he would take to find a unified theory of physics?" I'm sure there's some small amount of software work that might fit in that space. I would also guess that the vast majority of it doesn't.
- lotyrin 11y agoYeah, I find the optimal balance between simple numbers that find traction politically, and the realistic but unpopular acceptance that things are uncertain is a triangular distribution "least possible, greatest possible, most likely". You can plug these into monte carlo simulations with any kind of math happening between your uncertain terms, get output distributions, pick bounds to minimise risk (95% chance the release is completed on or before <DATE>).