[regularfry]

The unfortunate truth is that as soon as someone in the process wants an estimate, rather than wanting to see delivered value, you've already got a situation in which "agile"-style planning is on the back foot. Aside from any business value there may be in the estimate itself, insisting on being given one is a political move designed to put software delivery organisations on the defensive: the framing is that IT is a cost centre, not a value source. That's so common that it's easy to forget that it's not the only choice.