Teach this to your manager: At the beginning of a task, uncertainty is highest. Under no circumstances should you give an estimate in ‘man-hours’. Even days is too precise. The first estimate should be in months or years (of course depending on the size of the project). Then, as your insight into the project grows, you refine that to months, then weeks, later days. A vague estimate with a lower and a higher bound is way more useful to your manager than a ridiculously ‘precise’ but highly speculative number.
This lesson was brought to you by either “Code Complete 2” or “Rapid Development” by Steve McConnel, and by my former manager who wanted projects estimated in minutes.
Just use unix milliseconds
Point the ticket using the value of a cryptocurrency.
my former manager who wanted projects estimated in minutes.
Sorry, the number buffer overflowed.
I usually say what unit of measurement we’re counting in: days, weeks or months. For more detail, more specs are needed.
The project will be completed by Stardate -287289.4717465754
Not if your manager then takes the minimum of your estimate.
I don’t work for a while anymore.
Your minimum estimate should be your actual estimate times three.
Sir, I estimate the project will be completed in 135 days and 11 hours.
Don’t forget to add padding, so I’d just round it out to 18 months to be safe.
It makes me happy to see the good place memes.
My boss asking, me: “2 days to a week”.
Meaning: 2 days best case scenario, but there’s likely something where i’m stuck for days trying to solve it, so a week.
My boss: “ok, two days then.”
That’s because all tasks finish in the dot of the “i” of the Jeremy Bearimy sprint, I dunno what to tell you…
