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> an agreed upon estimate That's not an estimate; that sounds like the outcome of a negotiation. If someone demands an estimate from me, they get one - if it's

> an agreed upon estimate That's not an estimate; that sounds like the outcome of a negotiation. If someone demands an estimate from me, they get one - if it's not the one the manager wanted, he's free to substitute his own. I'm accustomed to managers upping my estimates by 10%, and I've known them to increase them by 100%. For small jobs, requiring an estimate instantly doubles the estimate, because it takes longer to produce a good estimate than it does to do the work. If you reduce my estimate, or try to talk me down, the new estimate is your estimate, not mine. And if you think it's fair to try to nail me to my estimate, then you obviously don't know what "estimate" means, and I need a new employer.

commandlinefan 5y ago
> If someone demands an estimate from me, they get one See, you're missing the point of the estimate game. It's not to figure out how long it's going to take - they already know nobody knows the answer to that (and they've already decided how long it's going to take anyway). The point of the estimate is to bully you into making a completely unrealistic promise and then use that promise to bully you into working nights and weekends to keep it (one of the reasons they love work visas that are tied to a specific employer). It usually works on young naive developers for a while, until they either ulcerate themselves into an early grave or develop a healthy cynicism about estimates. Actually trying to deliver quality software is, incidentally, never one of the goals, just getting promoted by abusing people below them.