[dpenguin]

It only means you didn’t do your homework(no offense, everyone falls into this trap too and conclude the issue is that estimation itself is not possible ). You can’t give an estimate based on what the task would take at your previous job.

You need to call out what you don’t know(Now, don’t give me Rumsfeld wisdom.. Most software is not that complicated)

[travisjungroth]

The homework is the job. You can only know how long it will take if you know what you’re going to do. And if you know what you’re going to do, why not just go do it? Just typing out the code doesn’t take that long.

[dpenguin]

It could be because you are working on a brand new area every single “Sprint “(or equivalent). That’s not prudent assignment of resources(the manager should know this).

I have worked in companies where ownership is somewhat static(same few folks work on a given area of the product) and things get done within 10% of estimates (a lot of innovation too).

I have also worked in terms where ownership is fluid and “resources” get assigned to tasks. Nothing is now “estimatable”. Your experience is probably in line with the latter.

[benhurmarcel]

> things get done within 10% of estimates

You can easily do that by estimating very wide and delaying the deliverables until the planned date.

[dpenguin]

That’s cheating. No, that’s not what happened in that org though.