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Do you fire engineers who consistently finish projects ahead of their estimates? Is any degree of sandbagging is a firing offense? If not, wheres the threshold

by nullc 3y ago

Do you fire engineers who consistently finish projects ahead of their estimates? Is any degree of sandbagging is a firing offense? If not, wheres the threshold? Is your organization completely and unconditionally free of mandates like each department must "Cut budget x%" or "improve output by y%" -- irrespective of the incremental cuts and improvements that a group may have had in recent memory? If not, isn't a group that diligently finds and implements efficiencies at a disadvantage compared to ones that just don't look until a mandate comes in? Kudos if you really do have an organization where there is no structural incentive to sandbag or otherwise bank results.

hardware2win 3y ago
>Do you fire engineers who consistently finish projects ahead of their estimates? >Is any degree of sandbagging is a firing offense? If not, wheres the threshold? Intentionally just to slack off or just because they arent sure or want use that time to improve other small thing?
- WJW 3y ago
  As if the average manager can reliably tell the difference.
aardvark179 3y ago
People who are consistently conservative in their estimates do get noticed, and the estimates adjusted appropriately in the same way that people who always under estimate get their estimates adjusted. That’s fine, the worst that’s going to happen is a conversation about learning from previous estimates. People who sandbag to give themselves an easy life, or to try and empire build by getting more resources, definitely get noticed, and not in a good way.
- swiftcoder 3y ago
  > try and empire build by getting more resources, definitely get noticed, and not in a good way This is actively incentivised in a lot of tech companies - maybe more so for managers than ICs, but the bigger-your-fiefdom the easier it is to promote phenomenon tends to be pretty widespread.
  - aardvark179 3y ago
    Empire building is often incentivised, sandbagging to try and get those resources generally isn’t.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  "Adjusting estimates" is just another way to force engineers to lie in their Jira tickets about how much time they spend on each ticket. At one point my agile master was complaining to me about estimations, so I just focused on reporting the correct amount of hours to make the burn down chart be straight. Decoupling reported time from actual time spent. Good lord I switched jobs.
- couchand 3y ago
  Humans are bad at estimation and there's no evidence that "having a conversation" will make them any better at it. Your organization should acknowledge and handle the fallibility of humans, not try vainly to excise it.
  - aardvark179 3y ago
    If your colleague always estimates that a particular type of task will take a couple of days, and it always takes a couple of weeks, you wouldn't discuss it next time they estimate it is only going to take a couple of days? Yes, humans are bad at estimation, which is why it's good to reflect on how well you do and to correct if you consistently over or underestimate.

by nullc 3y ago

hardware2win 3y ago

>Do you fire engineers who consistently finish projects ahead of their estimates? >Is any degree of sandbagging is a firing offense? If not, wheres the threshold? Intentionally just to slack off or just because they arent sure or want use that time to improve other small thing?

WJW 3y ago
As if the average manager can reliably tell the difference.

aardvark179 3y ago

People who are consistently conservative in their estimates do get noticed, and the estimates adjusted appropriately in the same way that people who always under estimate get their estimates adjusted. That’s fine, the worst that’s going to happen is a conversation about learning from previous estimates. People who sandbag to give themselves an easy life, or to try and empire build by getting more resources, definitely get noticed, and not in a good way.

swiftcoder 3y ago
> try and empire build by getting more resources, definitely get noticed, and not in a good way This is actively incentivised in a lot of tech companies - maybe more so for managers than ICs, but the bigger-your-fiefdom the easier it is to promote phenomenon tends to be pretty widespread.
- aardvark179 3y ago
  Empire building is often incentivised, sandbagging to try and get those resources generally isn’t.
rightbyte 3y ago
"Adjusting estimates" is just another way to force engineers to lie in their Jira tickets about how much time they spend on each ticket. At one point my agile master was complaining to me about estimations, so I just focused on reporting the correct amount of hours to make the burn down chart be straight. Decoupling reported time from actual time spent. Good lord I switched jobs.
couchand 3y ago
Humans are bad at estimation and there's no evidence that "having a conversation" will make them any better at it. Your organization should acknowledge and handle the fallibility of humans, not try vainly to excise it.
- aardvark179 3y ago
  If your colleague always estimates that a particular type of task will take a couple of days, and it always takes a couple of weeks, you wouldn't discuss it next time they estimate it is only going to take a couple of days? Yes, humans are bad at estimation, which is why it's good to reflect on how well you do and to correct if you consistently over or underestimate.