[xornox]

After many decades we still discuss and wonder how work amount estimates should be done and why they are always wrong. The most brilliant software engineers and project managers have developed countless different methods and nothing works.

For me it tells that nature of work is such that we just can not estimate work amounts. We are just pretending that it can be done.

[xarope]

Absolutely; we still treat knowledge-based work as if it were factory based with known inputs and outputs (someone can chime in on MBAs etc...)

[shapefrog]

Are you suggesting that MBA programmes are a factory with known inputs and outputs? Probably a fair critique

[mach1ne]

It depends on the type of work. Generally and counterintuitively, the more individual random variables the work contains the easier it is to estimate. This is because random variations cancel each other out when they are in large quantities.

With programming, one random variable can add days, weeks or even months of work.