earlier in my career, I would have said that, yes, it is a waste of time. on one hand, estimating essentially requires architecting, and that's never a waste o

earlier in my career, I would have said that, yes, it is a waste of time. on one hand, estimating essentially requires architecting, and that's never a waste of time. on the other hand, you could argue that even w a good plan you won't know where the 1-2 rabbit holes will be (some subtly critical facet of my use case not jiving with the proposed toolset). So i'd say get a decent plan (weeks, not hours) in place and give yourself a 50%+ buffer.