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The iron rule is the person doing the work also supplies the estimates, which are the only ones with any chance of getting them right. This article seems the de

• arthur_sav 5y ago
  And from my experience, one meeting with the PM asking how long will it take... is not going to cut it either. Until i really dig into the requirements and dependencies i will probably fall out of the estimate. The biggest bottleneck for me is usually other stakeholders.
• lightbendover 5y ago
  I would strongly disagree and Joel offers no evidence in defense of that statement. I wouldn't expect junior employees to have a strong understanding of task complexity, their own ramp-up period, available resources, unforeseen impediments, the experience necessary to estimate accurately, etc.. Estimates are best done by the team as a whole as it is the only way to rely on everyone's collective judgment ("I don't think we need this requirement," "we are going to run into this problem," "this is similar to task X we completed 2 years ago"). If done in this manner, the process also serves as training opportunities for the more junior employees.
  • commandlinefan 5y ago
    I have read the Joel link, but I actually didn't need to read it to know what it was going to say because it says the same thing every "you just need to learn how to estimate" article ever says: "First, write down everything you're going to do. Second, write down how long each of those things will take. Third, add them all up and voila, you have a 100% accurate estimate! Easy!"