[dkarl]

> The amount of time/effort required to create a reliable estimate would probably double the cost of the completed project (ie, even after taking into account the overshoot on the informal estimate).

I've seen it done, and it's more than double. You have to have most of the work done before you deliver the estimate. The thing is, you have to deliver an estimate that is at least as long as the time you spent producing the estimate, but you're already mostly done, so towards the end of a project there's a lot of gold plating and general screwing around. It's a silly way to work.

And everybody knows what's going on, because people talk. You can't keep it secret. You can only do it as long as upper management thinks it benefits the company. The customer-facing side of the business (sales, customer success) makes a very strong case that faster delivery means happier customers, and more optimistic timelines mean more sales. As much as accurate estimation is an eternal management dream, there's not much benefit to it other than a little bit of dubiously valuable trust and credibility with customers. The idea that "if only we could estimate accurately, we could execute grand strategic visions" is mostly bullshit. You're slowing yourself down, and the only thing you get out of it is that engineering management gets to pat themselves on the back for hitting estimates.

[doctor_eval]

> The idea that "if only we could estimate accurately, we could execute grand strategic visions" is mostly bullshit.

10000x this. It’s complete bullshit.

And the bullshit is often used to shift blame to the dev team in order to cover up for a lack of management competence.

I started to think about how to describe the problem in business planning terms (ie, money) because I needed to come up with language that senior management and non-software CEOs could understand, for a series of meetings I recently attended. I realised that just saying “you can’t do it” is unsatisfying, and just leads to arguments.

“Yes you can have accurate estimates but it will >2x the project cost” seemed to resonate.

(And yes I think it’s much more than 2x too)