Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by marcosdumay 1502 days ago
Always keep in mind that estimate errors follow a long-tailed distribution. That means that if you estimate enough things, your total error will be defined by one or two tasks, it doesn't matter how you did for 95% of them.

Thus, if your goal is to lie to management stating that "we met 98% of our estimations last year" implying that because of this, there is not problem, then yes, go work on improving your estimates.

If your goal is to get things done so you can get some real progress, go set realistic targets on time or ROI and learn to throw away tasks that failed it.

And if your goal is to never get an estimation wrong, because they are commitments that you can never get free after you made them, go practice your interview skills and move to a better environment.