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When did estimates turn into deadlines?

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Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#81

Post by jeltz »

Atheros wrote: post #73
jappgar wrote: post #54

A lot of ink has been spilled on this topic. The solution is simple: get better at estimating. Software engineers act as if they're the only ones in the world who are asked to estimate and then held accountable. It's a skill issue.

Nonsense. Code is copy-pasteable; other things are not. One can give very accurate estimates of how long it takes to build a brick wall because building brick walls takes time and labor. You can make highly accurate estimates of how long it takes based on how long it has taken to do the exact same task in the past. But suppose I laid one brick and then could copy-paste it, then copy-paste that into four bricks, then…

Building brick walls is easy to estimate not because it is physical labor but because the company has done it many times before. Ask a construction company to estimate a unique one-off job and they will most likely fail. And that is despite them getting a lot of resources for investigating and planning which software engineers almost never get.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#82

Post by kelseyfrog »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #43
kelseyfrog wrote: post #29

> Can you imagine if the insurance company started arguing with the repair shop, asking them—no—telling them that they would only pay the $18,000 and not the additional $20,000 because that was the original estimate? Well yeah, because there's not an inherent power imbalance like there is in employment. Part of this imbalance results in the ability for managers to employ Taylorization upon their directs. The majority…

Also, insurance does do stuff like that.

They do, I considered adding that, but felt like it detracted from the point.

Any passing glance at the healthcare system immediately reveals that doctors don't give patients cost estimates, inflate costs for insurers, and then settle at negotiated rates. Often they tack on procedures that aren't necessarily part of the initial plan due to unforeseen circumstances while the patient is unconscious and unable to consent, and you can go into a hospital that is ostensibly covered only to find out that a particular provider isn't. It's like if your treads were discovered to be bare, they decided to replace them and then the guy who does wheels sends you his own bill a month later.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#83

Post by switchbak »

aoeusnth1 wrote: post #45
redleggedfrog wrote: post #9

I've gone through times when management would treat estimates as deadlines, and were deaf to any sort of reason about why it could be otherwise, like the usual thing of them changing the specification repeatedly. So when those times have occurred I've (we've more accurately) adopted what I refer to the "deer in the headlights" response to just about anything non-trivial. "Hoo boy, that could be doozy. I think someone…

In my experience, super large estimates don’t make you look good in the long run, they make you look incompetent. The engineers who are most likely to be under-performers are also those who give super inflated estimates for simple tasks. Maybe this is a good strategy for dealing with people who aren’t going to judge you for delivering slowly, or for managers who don’t know what the fuck is going on. For managers who…

It's exactly this kind of prideful ego centric attitude that these managers rely on to get folks to commit to unrealistic estimates, then work nights and weekends (and cut corners) to fulfil.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#84

Post by c0balt »

eminent101 wrote: post #50
aoeusnth1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, super large estimates don’t make you look good in the long run, they make you look incompetent. The engineers who are most likely to be under-performers are also those who give super inflated estimates for simple tasks. Maybe this is a good strategy for dealing with people who aren’t going to judge you for delivering slowly, or for managers who don’t know what the fuck is going on. For managers who…

So many bold claims in this comment and little to no justification. For what it's worth I've seen pretty much the opposite. I don't know about competent vs. incompetent engineers. But when it comes to experience, I've seen the inexperienced ones giving super low estimates and the experienced people giving larger estimates.

Ime, as a junior dev/ops person, there is almost always scope creep and adding padding grants you room to account for the new idea your supervisor/ user thought of when being midway into development. As far as I can tell, my supervisor also assumes my estimates should be padded more because sometimes you might need wait on human i/o for longer than planned (holidays/ sick leave/...).

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#85

Post by jimmydddd »

Etheryte wrote: post #80
redleggedfrog wrote: post #9

I've gone through times when management would treat estimates as deadlines, and were deaf to any sort of reason about why it could be otherwise, like the usual thing of them changing the specification repeatedly. So when those times have occurred I've (we've more accurately) adopted what I refer to the "deer in the headlights" response to just about anything non-trivial. "Hoo boy, that could be doozy. I think someone…

The hallmark of a bad manager who doesn't know they're a bad manager: "Why can't you just give me a number?" Inexperienced managers or people backfilling for someone else I can completely understand, they're not comfortable with the uncertainty they're dealing with. However in any other circumstance I think it's inexcusable.

But you have to remember that the manager is going to be asked for an estimate by his boss. He can't just say some time between "1 day and 10 years." In the real world, you have to be able to give some sort of estimate and help the poor guy do his job.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#86

Post by bdangubic »

eminent101 wrote: post #50
aoeusnth1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, super large estimates don’t make you look good in the long run, they make you look incompetent. The engineers who are most likely to be under-performers are also those who give super inflated estimates for simple tasks. Maybe this is a good strategy for dealing with people who aren’t going to judge you for delivering slowly, or for managers who don’t know what the fuck is going on. For managers who…

So many bold claims in this comment and little to no justification. For what it's worth I've seen pretty much the opposite. I don't know about competent vs. incompetent engineers. But when it comes to experience, I've seen the inexperienced ones giving super low estimates and the experienced people giving larger estimates.

I think general problem on HN is that you can't say something "bold" without people going "nuts" - especially when it comes to estimating work.

In my experience (been hacking since the '90's before it was cool) great developers are great at estimating things. And these are not outliers, all except 1 great developer I've had pleasure of working with over these years has never been "off" on estimates by any statistically significant margin. but you say anything like that here on HN and it is heresy.

My general opinion is that developers LOVE making everyone believe that software development is somehow "special" from many other "industries" for the lack of a better word and that we simply cannot give you accurate estimates that you can use to make "deadlines" (or better said project plans). and yet most developers (including ones raising hell here and downvoting any comment contrary to "popular belief") are basically doing sht that's been done million times before, CRUD here, form there, notification there, event there etc... It is not like we are all going "oh sht, I wonder how long it'll take to create a sign-up form."

I think we have (so far) been successful at running this "scam" whereby "we just can't accurately estimate it" because of course it is super advantageous to us. and WFH has made this even worse in my opinion - given that we can't provide "accurate estimates" now we can simply pad them (who dare to question this, it is just an estimate, right? can't hold me to the estimate...) and then chill with our wifes and dogs when sh*t is done 6 weeks earlier :)

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#87

Post by ethbr1 »

bigiain wrote: post #51
redleggedfrog wrote: post #9

I've gone through times when management would treat estimates as deadlines, and were deaf to any sort of reason about why it could be otherwise, like the usual thing of them changing the specification repeatedly. So when those times have occurred I've (we've more accurately) adopted what I refer to the "deer in the headlights" response to just about anything non-trivial. "Hoo boy, that could be doozy. I think someone…

> I've gone through times when management would treat estimates as deadlines, and were deaf to any sort of reason about why it could be otherwise, like the usual thing of them changing the specification repeatedly. I worked at a place where this management insanity was endemic, which lead to everyone padding all estimates with enough contingency to account for that. Which lad to the design team, and the front-end tea…

This is literally the endgame.

And the only cure is instead building a company that's tolerant of mistakes while still aspiring to excellence.

The one I've worked at which got the closest had a corporate culture that failures were atrributable to processes, while successes were atrributable to individuals/teams.

Of course that had its own negative side effects, but on the whole it made the company a lot more honest with itself. And consequently got better work out of everyone.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#88

Post by pseudosavant »

I would say that the trend against actual agile and towards waterfall (PRDs are totally en vogue) suggests that deadlines are how most company management looks at this. Definitely not suggesting it is right, but "really aggressive 'estimates' (that are accurate beyond human ability) you can plan on", aka deadlines, are expected of any product/engineering org today.

Tell me a story I want to believe, even if it isn't true. Then you can make it the teams' fault because they said they would and didn't.

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#89

Post by yoelhacks »

I often see takes on this topic from the engineering side. "It's hard!". "Managers just don't understand".

It feels like as a community, it would be useful to get more articles seeing things from the other side and exploring functional approaches beyond provide-a-worst-case-scenario-estimate.

There's a reason this dynamic is so pervasive. In order for everyone in an organization to do their job well, people do often need a realistic set of estimates. Can sales promise the prospect this integration? Can marketing plan a launch for the new feature? Can the CPO make a reasonable bet on a new line of work?

In my experience, the nuance here is more about handling the mis-estimates. How do we discuss the risks up front? How much work should we put into contingency planning? How do we handle the weeks / months before a deadline when it is clear that we need to limit scope?

Re: When did estimates turn into deadlines?

#90

Post by xedrac »

jimmydddd wrote: post #85
Etheryte wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hallmark of a bad manager who doesn't know they're a bad manager: "Why can't you just give me a number?" Inexperienced managers or people backfilling for someone else I can completely understand, they're not comfortable with the uncertainty they're dealing with. However in any other circumstance I think it's inexcusable.

But you have to remember that the manager is going to be asked for an estimate by his boss. He can't just say some time between "1 day and 10 years." In the real world, you have to be able to give some sort of estimate and help the poor guy do his job.

And thus we get to the root of the problem. As as business executive, why not simply track how long your big projects tend to take, rather than try and dictate how long they should take?
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