Having been involved professionally in software development for about 14 years now, I have to say I respectfully disagree. More planning does not result in bet

Having been involved professionally in software development for about 14 years now, I have to say I respectfully disagree. More planning does not result in better predictions. In fact, it often results in worse ones. That is just my empirical observation. My best guess as to why, is that there are managers involved that attempt to negotiate the planned delivery time down. They do this, in part, because it's hard to get devs to work late or on the weekend when the project is on schedule, but easier to do when there is obvious risk of falling behind schedule. So, from their point of view, the best way to get the product delivered early is to get the schedule made too optimistically. Not saying they SHOULD do this, or even that they are consciously thinking this way, but it's what the situation incentivizes them to do, and it's what normally happens. The gut level immediate answer is based on past experience, and the long drawn out meeting produced, System 2 answer, is based on management bargaining the developers down to a shorter timeline.