The highest performing teams I have been a part of did not regularly do estimates for planned work. That may be the best practice for 2021. If we had to absolutely deliver by a fixed date - a rarity - we broke the task down in parts that could be estimated, identified the dependencies between tasks, and kept management informed if those dates could slip. This lightweight process worked pretty well if we had to implem…
Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#22We naturally learned to slice « too big » tickets and we roughly define « too big » by « I’ll probably struggle on this ».
It’s far from perfect, not really better but absolutely not worse than when we did estimates and we are able to achieve our goals, which is what matters.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#23Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#24On some teams, we're trending towards "story-count" rather than points. These teams are typically executing extremely well and don't need the (small) overhead of points.
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John Cutler has some good thinking on this issue: https://medium.com/hackernoon/work-small-even-if-it-makes-no...
Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#25Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#26The below is a joke, but sadly it is representative of most teams I have worked on. If it's like anything that most managers do, you have the team come up with estimates, have some meetings to see if you missed anything, discover that you did, then create a schedule, remembering to add slack time for unforeseen interruptions due to people getting sick, customer issues, etc. Then you see that the schedule is too long.…
Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#27Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#28The highest performing teams I have been a part of did not regularly do estimates for planned work. That may be the best practice for 2021. If we had to absolutely deliver by a fixed date - a rarity - we broke the task down in parts that could be estimated, identified the dependencies between tasks, and kept management informed if those dates could slip. This lightweight process worked pretty well if we had to implem…
Can you tell more? I would be interested how you can get management to let go of regular estimations, and how you still delivered.
As long as your team manages to finish sprints, it doesn’t matter how you are estimating (or not) the tasks inside of a sprint.
Sprint tasks are for internal (team) use only, including the management inside the team. But people outside (and up) the team just need your deadline commitment.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#29If you're a company that plans far in advance, the same is true. You'll demand the work you wanted is done at a given date, again regardless of how difficult it was.
At my company, we have a well maintained backlog of work. We pick dates in the future to check in on what got done in between check ins. The product manager can (re)prioritize work as needed. We pull from the top. If there's a surprise deadline it gets brought up to everyone and then put at the top of the queue, sometimes over currently in-progress tasks.
You cannot bend the realities of time and complexity. If something is hard, an estimate doesn't make it easier. A hard delivery date also doesn't bring predictability. Ultimately, with or without estimates, you'll get what you get. If you want to get _more_, ask a team what's making them slow and then prioritize fixing the things they bring up. If every team is working optimally (they're not), hire.
I'll also add, the time it takes to prepare an estimate of any value is probably 10x what anybody asking you to estimate something is willing to provide. You're being asked to spit out a number to fit an existing narrative. If you wanted to estimate a unit of work with any amount of legitimacy, you'd need hours/days/weeks (depending on SOW). These companies scheduling weekly estimation meetings that last an hour and are bullshit scrum cards don't matter and aren't interested in being even close to correct.
Re: Ask HN: How do you do estimates in 2021?
#30The highest performing teams I have been a part of did not regularly do estimates for planned work. That may be the best practice for 2021. If we had to absolutely deliver by a fixed date - a rarity - we broke the task down in parts that could be estimated, identified the dependencies between tasks, and kept management informed if those dates could slip. This lightweight process worked pretty well if we had to implem…
Can you tell more? I would be interested how you can get management to let go of regular estimations, and how you still delivered.
They have to convince themselves.