Estimates are wrong. Try not to use them. Deliver Value Instead.

Two commonly provided pieces of advice in doing estimates for software development are:

  • Estimate how long it will take, double it, and double it again
  • Estimate how long it will take, and then move up to the next unit of time (2 days becomes a week, 1 week becomes month, etc)

Any reasonable person would conclude that we don’t know what we are doing.

Yet compare this to construction where skyscrappers are built to schedule.
The project management triangle of Cost, Scope and Time.

Software development projects are more akin to writing a novel than construction.
Think ‘Writing Code’ rather than ‘Building Software’.

It is possible to accurately estimate software development projects…
… turn them from a creative task in to a well-defined process.

Guess what is excellent at executing well-defined processes? Computers
The act of writing the software is in itself defining the process.

Rather than trying to estimate, instead deliver value.

The more value delivered…
… the less estimates are required.