[mkramlich]

Early impressions of the article:

some of that is getting what you pay for. If you go after cheaper or younger people, you're more likely (all other things being equal, general case, etc etc) to get lower quality work. Also, there's a self-created problem factor where if you force somebody else to give you an estimate (which is just a guess however much you pretty it up and repackage it), and then turn that around and treat it as a deadline, then you can expect those deadlines to go whooshing past. And it will happen even more often if you have cheaper/younger/less-experienced programmers.

Hire better people, which also means paying them more. And don't ask for estimates. Just see what happens, and iterate.