Planning and estimating are orthogonal. I don't think inaccurate estimates should prevent you from anticipating the future. > have to learn to work without es

Planning and estimating are orthogonal. I don't think inaccurate estimates should prevent you from anticipating the future. > have to learn to work without estimations. A closely related, but different time management tool is a budget. Consider the same website but made in: 3 hours, 3 weeks, or 3 years. The methodology and tradeoffs the engineer approaches each of those projects is very different and needs to be known up front. Part of the goal of estimation should be to create a budget for various key areas of the project, not guess how long it will take to fix 5 critical system bugs.