Estimates Are Wasteful
Thousands of companies and organizations have been managing by estimates for decades. Do you think that you are smarter than the owners and managers of everyone of them?!?
I must admit, that question ruffles my feathers every time I hear it. Mostly because, that’s a direct attack on me, not my ideas, and a part of me wants to lash out back at them, or just glibly reply in the affirmative. I don’t. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all…
Today I just thought of a real good answer. Perhaps still a bit on the glib side, but at least not disrespectful or boastful.
Am I Smarter Than Pro-Estimate Managers?
This is going to be my new go-to answer. Feel free to use it. Feel free to quote me:
I think that I have more knowledge, better tooling, and have learned from more failures, than whoever originally came up with the idea to estimate. And I have no basis to compare myself with those who simply estimate because that is what everybody else is/was doing.
What Do You Think?
Let me know in the comments.
Reference: | Do We Really Need Estimates? from our NCG partner Assaf Stone at the Software and I blog. |