If it's business the one that wants the estimation, then I take into account everything: unrelated meetings, bugfixing of important stuff that gets broken, pote

If it's business the one that wants the estimation, then I take into account everything: unrelated meetings, bugfixing of important stuff that gets broken, potential sickness/holidays, etc. What's the point of telling business that you can do the task in 3 days, if you cannot actually have 3 complete days to do the job? If you have "other work stuff to do" that will interfere between you delivering the item, you have to take that into account. > Either you're a godlike estimator or you disappoint your manager A LOT. Who the hell are these people that can reliably say feature X will take me 8 weeks? Is that also not just an estimate? I'd rather wallow in the vagueness of points than get my ass reprimanded because I said something would take X weeks. If you're looking for absolute predictability you need factory line work. You give estimations in time units because that's the only unit business wants. You can sure say "that will take X points"... nobody will listen to you and they will demand a different answer. It doesn't really matter, actually.