Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"No, it's less effort than that"

smartguess.is

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 388 posts

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#171

Post by VonGallifrey »

dbalatero wrote: post #122

I think the biggest challenge I have is that people will immediately ask for estimates when the project is barely a paragraph description. On top of that, my feeling is always "it depends on how much tech debt is in the code after I look in there." The only reasonable response I've had is "I need 1-2 days to both push you on solidifying these requirements, and stop & audit the codebase to look for any risks before st…

This is the problem I have at the moment as well:

Company Leadership asks for estimate with barely any information, I will then say that I need to learn more about the project and look into the codebase, leadership then says that they "just" need to have an estimate to approve this work and if they want to do this project at all. Around and around it goes until I give them a large estimate (which is large because of all the unknowns including the unknown scope) which is then too much and too expensive for leadership.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#172

Post by lukevp »

corry wrote: post #167

“Pushing sales people to increase their amount of sales/quota is like asking meteorologists for sunshine”. Hmmm it doesn’t seem unreasonable in that context? You’re really asking people to work more effectively, to accomplish the same amount of work more quickly. It’s like asking sales people what their quota should be. They pick a number that is no-brainer hittable, because there is a lot of complexity and many unkn…

Isn’t sales a numbers game for the most part? Like you can convert 10% of leads, so if I need 5 conversions instead of 4, I need to call ~10 more people?

A better comparison to software I think would be construction of a novel building. Try constructing a geodesic dome house with no experience, and little knowledge of the issues you might run into, but then you’re asked for accurate estimates and then pressured to shorten them.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#173

Post by bdcravens »

paulsutter wrote: post #23

The only magic wand in software development is to simplify requirements. The requirements are always wrong: too broad, too vague, based on invalid assumptions The real genius is to propose a simplified solution, by discarding some assumptions. This is the best and only way to shrink the schedule

This assumes a developer whose workflow is more or less optimized.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#174

Post by ejb999 »

ResearchCode wrote: post #151
ejb999 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Management has to push for lower estimates because developers have an incentive to overestimate to make life easier. Bingo, having just left a mega-corp this is the status-quo of a lot of projects I had visibility into - take a trivial task, estimate it at 8-13 story points (i.e. the whole 2 week sprint), have nobody question the estimates, complete the story in 1-2 days and then chill for the other 8-9 days left i…

How about getting rid of the "stories", "points" and "sprints" altogether? Not only is the nomenclature abhorrent, the best software projects don't use enterprise agile methodology.

I agree, but a lot of big companies are all in on Agile and you (as a developer) don't really get a lot of say on the matter.

Some high-paid consultants got paid a lot of money to sell it to the CEO, who then mandates it....so we are stuck with it ...until those same consultants have some other methodology-du-jour to sell.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#175

Post by paulcole »

corry wrote: post #167

“Pushing sales people to increase their amount of sales/quota is like asking meteorologists for sunshine”. Hmmm it doesn’t seem unreasonable in that context? You’re really asking people to work more effectively, to accomplish the same amount of work more quickly. It’s like asking sales people what their quota should be. They pick a number that is no-brainer hittable, because there is a lot of complexity and many unkn…

There’s a consistent belief here that Programming Isn’t Like Other Work™ and that you can’t estimate it, it’s so mentally taxing that you can’t do it for more than a few minutes at a time in complete silence, and that it’s closer to Da Vinci sculpting the Sistine Chapel than kludging together a few APIs.

It’s fun to think you’re special and easy to do when you’re paid a shitload of money.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#176

Post by paulddraper »

corry wrote: post #167

“Pushing sales people to increase their amount of sales/quota is like asking meteorologists for sunshine”. Hmmm it doesn’t seem unreasonable in that context? You’re really asking people to work more effectively, to accomplish the same amount of work more quickly. It’s like asking sales people what their quota should be. They pick a number that is no-brainer hittable, because there is a lot of complexity and many unkn…

There's some truth to what you say.

The problem is that sales can be objectively measured by management. In units.

How does management measure development output?

It can be done, but it take an experienced eng leader to do it.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#177

Post by paulddraper »

lukevp wrote: post #172
corry wrote: post #167

“Pushing sales people to increase their amount of sales/quota is like asking meteorologists for sunshine”. Hmmm it doesn’t seem unreasonable in that context? You’re really asking people to work more effectively, to accomplish the same amount of work more quickly. It’s like asking sales people what their quota should be. They pick a number that is no-brainer hittable, because there is a lot of complexity and many unkn…

Isn’t sales a numbers game for the most part? Like you can convert 10% of leads, so if I need 5 conversions instead of 4, I need to call ~10 more people? A better comparison to software I think would be construction of a novel building. Try constructing a geodesic dome house with no experience, and little knowledge of the issues you might run into, but then you’re asked for accurate estimates and then pressured to sh…

> I need to call ~10 more people?

I need to write 10 more lines, code for 10 for minutes, etc.

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#178

Post by CipherThrowaway »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #162
Aeolun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird thing to say. If you ask me how long it takes to grow a baby, and I say, 9 months. Am I not cooperating with the business when you want it in 6? No amount of effort on either your or my part is going to make the baby appear faster.

> Why do you need a baby? > Do you need to grow your own, or could you adopt? > Is it about birth itself? Does it have to be a human baby? > Does the baby need to be related to you? > What if we hire a baby actor? …

Honestly, asking these kinds of business level questions as a dev is a great way to be seen as stubborn and uncooperative in businesses where the mindset of the OP comment has taken root.

The managers who complain about their devs not thinking at the business level are usually the ones shooting them down when they do. Why are the coders questioning why we need the baby?

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#179

Post by bdcravens »

GoToRO wrote: post #63
throwaway091ba wrote: post #51

Whenever this estimation question comes up, developers rarely put themselves in the shoes of the business side, and try to understand why there needs to be an estimate, and why shorter is always better than longer. What they do instead, is try to protect their holy land of software development, and exacerbate the differences between engineers and "the others" - sarcasm and cynisism usually shine through at this time,…

Well then bussiness people are also disconnected from reality. If a developer can write code and estimate and deliver in time for bussiness, then he is not an employee. He is a founder. What you want is people that deliver like a founder but that don't get any share of the profits. You want gullible people.

The word you're looking for is stakeholder, not founder.

Nonetheless, do you believe the opposite is true? If a developer doesn't feel like they are adopting the perspective of the business, are they a disposable resource?

Re: "No, it's less effort than that"

#180

Post by paulddraper »

GoToRO wrote: post #63
throwaway091ba wrote: post #51

Whenever this estimation question comes up, developers rarely put themselves in the shoes of the business side, and try to understand why there needs to be an estimate, and why shorter is always better than longer. What they do instead, is try to protect their holy land of software development, and exacerbate the differences between engineers and "the others" - sarcasm and cynisism usually shine through at this time,…

Well then bussiness people are also disconnected from reality. If a developer can write code and estimate and deliver in time for bussiness, then he is not an employee. He is a founder. What you want is people that deliver like a founder but that don't get any share of the profits. You want gullible people.

A founder is someone who starts a business.

It's not whatever you mentioned here.

Post reply on HN