4 ms·
> The correct thing is for either of those parties to say, "Okay, I understand it's not estimable at the moment. What are the steps that we need to take in orde
by VyseofArcadia 4y ago
> The correct thing is for either of those parties to say, "Okay, I understand it's not estimable at the moment. What are the steps that we need to take in order to get a reasonable estimate?"
Ah, that would be nice. In my experience it's more like, "Okay, I understand it's not estimable at the moment. Just make your best guess and we can revise it later. (Psych! I will hold you to this estimate like you were under oath in court!)"
This leads to things like the Scotty rule. Since management will always misuse, misunderstand, or misrepresent your estimate anyway, might as well look out for number one and inflate the estimate, just in case.
- idopmstuff 4y agoLet me genuinely encourage you to try to find a job at a very early stage startup. I hear these horror stories about PMs/managers/etc., but I've yet to really experience them. I suspect that's because I usually join companies of <50 people. The engineers care about getting things right, the PMs care about getting things right, and management is well aligned with everybody, because there's little to no hierarchy. The only time I've really had management "misuse, misunderstand, or misrepresent your estimate" is once they got past the point of being several hundred people with the bureaucracy that entails. Then I leave and go to a startup that's <50 people.