I managed developers for a long time, prior to retiring. Generally, except when I worked for a company filled with PMPs, I asked developers when they would com

I managed developers for a long time, prior to retiring. Generally, except when I worked for a company filled with PMPs, I asked developers when they would complete an assignment if things went well and if they didn't when. I didn't ask for task level estimates. I did ask for descriptive write up of the direction/approach and any intermediate milestones that told them they were on track and how well the project was going. Over time, I learned who was good at this type of estimate and who wasn't, who sandbagged, who was overly aggressive, etc. It took some time to get my bosses happy with the lack of detail, especially since I usually gave the pessimistic estimate or something close. I hated being micro-managed when I was writing code everyday and wasn't going to follow at practice that I myself had hated. This process worked great until I worked for a PMP-driven company, where projects routinely crashed and burned. Slack by Tom DeMarco should be required reading for all PMPs and their managers.