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Estimates should never be used to apply pressure(people take shortcuts), they should always try to reflect reality. In products estimates are used to work out

• dreamfactory2 12y ago
  > In products estimates are used to work out which features provide the most value, in the shortest amount of time. And this is why there is actually no difference between a product and a project. But value doesn't depend on estimates at all, as there may be many different ways to implement. Calculating value is therefore more important than estimating net value for any specific implementation - it tells you what your direction of travel should be.
• koonsolo 12y ago
  > In products estimates are used to work out which features provide the most value, in the shortest amount of time. With products, estimating the value of a feature is even harder than estimating the implementation time/cost. And calculating the future revenue of your product is also harder than calculating the future implementation cost. You might argue that your product must be finished before you run out of money (which you can calculate with estimates), but MVP's don't rely on estimates that much and you can test your product/market fit at the same time. In theory, product profitability and selecting features seems highly depend on estimates, but in practice I always saw that gut feeling was good enough, for both features and how long a development will take. You can't drop the must-have features, and nice to haves can be implemented after your first release.