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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Every deadline can be met if employees are "eager to please" and will work unlimited overtime hours for free. What estimation theory you use doesn't really change that. The true challenge of project management is – can you set realistic deadlines and meet them assuming a normal workforce with normal priorities putting in the standard amount of effort towards the job.

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Things would change if overtime was paid at a mandatory 1.5x and 2.0x. The true cost is always hidden because people "eager to please" work overtime for free (or for a slice of pizza).

Until they get burned, then they work for noone else afterwards.

That's not really true. There could be not enough hours in the day, even with lots of overtime, and your team could have an impossible task. Eager to please employees will still clock the overtime, because then "at least I tried", and they have the optics of "giving their all".

However, I agree with your overall point. Getting things done on time without abusing people (I consider using people's personal time to be abusive), with everything in harmony is hard.

It's easy to push your employees to log hours and have everything be a trainwreck when people are cranky, overworked, and cut corners to make deadlines.

  > Every deadline can be met if employees are "eager to
  > please" and will work unlimited overtime hours for free.

No amount of pressure or willpower can get software done if the team is badly aligned, working on the wrong problem or simply flailing. The message I take from the parent post is not about estimation theory, it's that the project manager created a delivery culture across a large team.

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