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"No, it's less effort than that"

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

#191

Post by [deleted] »

paulddraper wrote: post #177
lukevp wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#192

Post by k1t »

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…

I feel the sales analogy is quite general (hit a quarterly/annual quota) but the engineering example is talking about a specific piece of functionality.

If you asked the sales team about a specific deal and they said "We estimate a 70% chance of closing the deal. It'll bring in about $5m in ARR."

If management responded "Could you make that 80% and $7m ARR?" I think that would be a closer analogy.

Sure it might be possible to improve the odds of closing and jack the price up at the same time - just like it might be possible to complete that feature in half the time - but somebody will have to make some major changes or concessions somewhere to make it happen.

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

#193

Post by epolanski »

jalapenos wrote: post #159

It's more Machiavellian than that. What the middleman wants is a heads I win, tails you lose deal. He wants to present a low number, to encourage whoever he's dealing with on his end to do what he wants, gaining the benefit from that. So he'll use every technique under the sun to encourage devs to give him a number he likes more, while never making it look like an order or coercion (which would make it his number - s…

I swear I hate this estimates thing so hard.

For many reasons:

1) Estimations should be useful so business can adapt. In reality there's no adaptation of any sort, your PM will get the stick from its own boss that stuff needs to be ready by this or that more-or-less vague deadline. Thus, what am I estimating for if you don't care about my estimation anyway?

2) There are no incentives for teams ultimately to estimate anything realistically. What do you get for being accurate? A medal? In fact, all incentives go towards inflating the amount of work through estimates.

3) Ultimately all this dancing of estimates and rituals is nothing else but stuff that management embraces to appear more effectful and impactful than it really is.

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

#194

Post by dappermanneke »

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…

great analogy but why doesn’t anyone pay me more for crunching out more tickets?

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

#195

Post by charles_f »

Sorry to be a stickler but this is a heavy editorialization of the title.

The original title is "Someone saying 'No, it's less effort than that!'?".

The current HN title isn't even a proper quote of the article, the quote is

> Pushing for a lower estimate is like negotiating better weather with the meteorologist!

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

#196

Post by cityofdelusion »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #41

If developers did not approach projects with the goal of adding acronyms to their resumes and infuse every project with the latest cargo cult du jour it would improve the ability to predict timelines. Pick boring technology, that the team is already comfortable with, when possible. Keep the teams as similar as possible, Keep running projects the same way, when possible I am not saying it will get things perfect, but…

The problem is that developers have a very strong incentive to add new technology to their resume, as their job is not guaranteed. I think most junior devs have seen some old hat at their first real job who codes in one, ancient tech stack; someone that they perceive as un-hirable if the economy takes a turn.

We all see the job listings out there and the tech they desire. It is self-preservation, and it is in direct conflict with what is best for the company itself. To use myself as an example: I have zero regrets with pushing for JavaScript over VBScript many years back, for moving from Microsoft HTA to React, or for moving from Yahoo's YUI to jQuery. Being infused with old tech can very severely limit your ability to survive. Most of my interviews after my first job were simply explaining/defending the ancient tech I had specialized in. It is all risk, no reward at the employee level.

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

#197

Post by watwut »

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…

> “Pushing sales people to increase their amount of sales/quota is like asking meteorologists for sunshine”.

Not really, because those are not estimates. Also, consequences are different. With programmers, consequence is typically very buggy and hard to maintain software.

With sales, the consequence is a lot of fraud, followed by firing of every who is not comiting fraud and then even more fraud.

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

#198

Post by riazrizvi »

Sometimes. Or the estimator is fixated on an extent of scope/depth that is not intended by the stakeholders at the initial stage. Or sometimes the estimator is baking in extra time that will get filled whether or not it’s necessary.

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

#199

Post by replyifuagree »

paulcole wrote: post #175
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.

Programming is like some kinds of work.

It is very much unlike operating an established manufacturing facility. But, about two thirds of dev work has a lot of parallels with creating a new manufacturing facility that manufactures a new kind of thing using new materials and techniques. The primary parallel is that a new facility requires a lot of discovery. Whereas if operating an existing facility constantly required a lot of discovery that disrupted operations it is likely the business team would pivot to something more lucrative.

Sadly most developers work in companies that have a manufacturing management system, which is inappropriate for managing development work, primarily because of pressure+timeline patterns typically applied via silo on silo kingdom building.

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

#200

Post by jalapenos »

epolanski wrote: post #193
jalapenos wrote: post #159

It's more Machiavellian than that. What the middleman wants is a heads I win, tails you lose deal. He wants to present a low number, to encourage whoever he's dealing with on his end to do what he wants, gaining the benefit from that. So he'll use every technique under the sun to encourage devs to give him a number he likes more, while never making it look like an order or coercion (which would make it his number - s…

I swear I hate this estimates thing so hard. For many reasons: 1) Estimations should be useful so business can adapt. In reality there's no adaptation of any sort, your PM will get the stick from its own boss that stuff needs to be ready by this or that more-or-less vague deadline. Thus, what am I estimating for if you don't care about my estimation anyway? 2) There are no incentives for teams ultimately to estimate…

Most impressive statement I ever heard said in a meeting between management and engineers about a project's progress was a long-tenured dev saying "it'll be done when it's done", followed by silence, and then they let it be.

To this day I still don't know how this event came to pass.

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