the only estimates i've ever been good at are the kind where i think through all the problems and break stuff down hour by hour. I still forget things, and some

the only estimates i've ever been good at are the kind where i think through all the problems and break stuff down hour by hour. I still forget things, and some parts inevitably explode. but the blast radius is pretty small. I can't break project down to 240 units of time on the spot. even 4 hours is still crazy tight, and produces poor estimates. that's barely a minute of thought for each hour. occasionally a manager will be comfortable with me staring off into space for a couple of days. but that's not super common. I think anybody can come up with good estimates. Almost nobody is willing to say, Take two hours and figure out how long it will take to estimate Project A and Project B.