3 ms·

> Can you do it? Provide an estimate that's accurate and stick to it with the routinized scheduling of a blue collar job? Yes, I work as a delivery lead nowada

> Can you do it? Provide an estimate that's accurate and stick to it with the routinized scheduling of a blue collar job? Yes, I work as a delivery lead nowadays. Producing and respecting estimates for software projects is literally my job. I routinely fire developers who pretend they can’t do estimate and strangely the ones I keep are actually not only able to do it but good at it.

barrysteve 4y ago
Fair enough. Guess I should admit you squarely got me.
firstlink 4y ago
You just made two contradictory claims: (a) that your job is to produce estimates; (b) that the developers who you work with are the ones who need to "do" the estimates. I've met your sort before. You're a net waste of resources in an org: instead of developers getting things done, they're dealing with you asking them to do your job for you, i.e. produce estimates for the things they'll never actually get around to doing (because of producing estimates). Your username would be accurate if s/My/Everyone's/
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  I produce estimates and coordinate eight concurrent projects involving ~70 people in cross functional teams. At some point, the actual domain experts have to give me their inputs so I can consolidate and prioritise things. Nothing contradictory here. If it helps you sleep at night, sure, assume I’m a net waste of ressource. Good luck fighting with the other seven teams for some time with the shared senior UX expert.
wruza 4y ago
Are you sure you’re not mistaking guess=deadline mode for actual estimating? And selecting among those who can meet deadlines. If you rarely eat your time buffers, great. If you do that often, maybe you just coinflip-fix deadlines this way and maneuver between them under the guise of successful estimation.
- re-thc 4y ago
  It's more likely than not that everyone is giving the wrong estimates i.e. just claim things take 3x as long, skip out on anything too hard and produce lower quality. You always get what you ask for. Like sure I can estimate. If you ask for a web server you'll just have that. It won't be secure. It won't be fast. It may work. It will certainly pass the tests you think of. Is that actually good? No. The real estimates get rejected. Everyone cuts corners. When something does happen e.g. a hack occurs the engineers not these managers get fired :(

barrysteve 4y ago

Fair enough. Guess I should admit you squarely got me.

firstlink 4y ago

You just made two contradictory claims: (a) that your job is to produce estimates; (b) that the developers who you work with are the ones who need to "do" the estimates. I've met your sort before. You're a net waste of resources in an org: instead of developers getting things done, they're dealing with you asking them to do your job for you, i.e. produce estimates for the things they'll never actually get around to doing (because of producing estimates). Your username would be accurate if s/My/Everyone's/

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
I produce estimates and coordinate eight concurrent projects involving ~70 people in cross functional teams. At some point, the actual domain experts have to give me their inputs so I can consolidate and prioritise things. Nothing contradictory here. If it helps you sleep at night, sure, assume I’m a net waste of ressource. Good luck fighting with the other seven teams for some time with the shared senior UX expert.

wruza 4y ago

Are you sure you’re not mistaking guess=deadline mode for actual estimating? And selecting among those who can meet deadlines. If you rarely eat your time buffers, great. If you do that often, maybe you just coinflip-fix deadlines this way and maneuver between them under the guise of successful estimation.

re-thc 4y ago
It's more likely than not that everyone is giving the wrong estimates i.e. just claim things take 3x as long, skip out on anything too hard and produce lower quality. You always get what you ask for. Like sure I can estimate. If you ask for a web server you'll just have that. It won't be secure. It won't be fast. It may work. It will certainly pass the tests you think of. Is that actually good? No. The real estimates get rejected. Everyone cuts corners. When something does happen e.g. a hack occurs the engineers not these managers get fired :(