Software engineering estimates are garbage

infoworld.com

4 pointsbz45903 comments

He says they're garbage and his solution instead is basically 'just talk it out bro'. Although I agree there are problems with Scrum and Agile, his solution is just idealistic and not helpful at all.

I disagree with your "just talk it out bro" characterization. And the mess legacy companies finds themselves in is real.

>Inspired with a new idea of how this software could be built better than originally specified? Keep it to yourself so you don’t mess up the timeline.

>Bludgeon people with the estimate enough, and they’ll soon learn to game the system. They’ll overestimate complexity to buy themselves more time. They’ll slow down when they’re progressing too quickly so they don’t set future expectations too high. Smart people would be foolish to do any less.

If digital transformation truly matters to a company, the above is a death knell.

He provides no solid foundation from which to work on. It's basically 'just talk it out and figure it out yourself'. Most companies don't have the idealistic teams he envisions where everyone is happy and collaborative. The teams might not even be in the same timezone today.

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