3 ms·

The best approach to this I have found is to ask why. What decision are you trying to make using this estimate? Understanding context helps you to understand w

• Rabei 9y ago
  The question is to know how much it costs, sometimes they also want to know if they'll meet some external deadline.
  • convolvatron 9y ago
    I think what the GP is getting at is that an estimate in absence of a context is meaningless. The organization may just be trying to get a handle on the rough scope of a job to make strategic decisions. They may also be in the middle of a discussion with a customer about delivering a feature. The best thing for both the company and yourself is to try to be as high bandwidth as possible and discuss all the potential risks and tradeoffs. Find out what the real goals are so you can optimize a solution to provide for them. Many managers and customers get stuck early on with a particular approach, but if you apply some creative engineering you can come up with a solution which is easier, or folds in with some other goal you were already working on, leverages existing functionality etc. its on you to express it in terms they can understand from their own position: risk, cost, headcount, schedule, dropping existing features. if your organization doesn't want to engage in that kind of semantically meaningful discussion, or comes back and says 'I know you said 3 months, but get in don't in 2 weeks' then you need to start managing upward and looking for a new job. or you can just overestimate, and enjoy your free 2 hour lunches for as long as the money lasts.