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Totally correct. This article is on the "totally idealistic" side, and I think it's important to know what is ideal as a benchmark when working in non-ideal sit

Totally correct. This article is on the "totally idealistic" side, and I think it's important to know what is ideal as a benchmark when working in non-ideal situations. Executives and clients like to see timelines and total project estimates. I wrote an article* about this. The idea is that you do some rough planning, applying the principles of Agile story point estimation, and extrapolating a rough/relative timeline. Relative timelines with non-specific dates are useful for getting an idea of the scope and possible time of a project. Helps determine what should be built first, prerequisites, and what other teams might need to be involved (and at what stage). Also useful to get the product managers or executives thinking a bit more deeply about the project and perhaps reconsidering it, or reducing scope if it looks like it will be larger or take longer than expected. Once a project is kicked off, after a few sprints the initial plan can be updated based on the actual velocity of the team. * https://jonpurdy.com/pm-framework/how-to-quickly-plan-and-estimate-an-mvp/ https://jonpurdy.com/pm-framework/how-to-quickly-plan-and-es...

maitredusoi 6y ago
> Executives and clients like to see timelines Do they really need them? ;)
- marcinzm 6y ago
  They need them because they all have their dependencies that they need to manage separate from this project. A client may need to plan training, transitions, budgets, deprecation of old systems, etc.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Yes. They need to not sell the next version too soon, but start selling soon enough to develop hype. They need to decide if they should invest in updating the previous solution one more time while waiting... They need to decide if the whole is worth the cost or should they develop a different project instead.
- jonpurdy 6y ago
  Others above me have mentioned the reasons why they need them. But I'll reiterate my emphasis on rough/relative timelines. Exact dates are impossible and the farther away a milestone is, the hazier the date is. As an example, a milestone a month away could be +/- a week, but a milestone a year away could be +/- three months.

maitredusoi 6y ago

> Executives and clients like to see timelines Do they really need them? ;)

marcinzm 6y ago
They need them because they all have their dependencies that they need to manage separate from this project. A client may need to plan training, transitions, budgets, deprecation of old systems, etc.
bluGill 6y ago
Yes. They need to not sell the next version too soon, but start selling soon enough to develop hype. They need to decide if they should invest in updating the previous solution one more time while waiting... They need to decide if the whole is worth the cost or should they develop a different project instead.
jonpurdy 6y ago
Others above me have mentioned the reasons why they need them. But I'll reiterate my emphasis on rough/relative timelines. Exact dates are impossible and the farther away a milestone is, the hazier the date is. As an example, a milestone a month away could be +/- a week, but a milestone a year away could be +/- three months.