Estimates and the Fog of War
A lone engineer stands at the city gate. She built a subway station here three years ago on a sunny day. On this dark, foggy night, she wishes her flashlight shone brighter, her map was up to date and that the neon signs of Ginza weren’t powered by a frozen yogurt stand ten miles away. If you’re in production, product or some other non-tech discipline, you’ve probably found yourself face-to-face with a supposedly smart and experienced engineer saying they’re unable to tell you how long it’ll take to build your next feature. Maybe they asked for a day or five to think about it. Perhaps they even said they wouldn’t be able to provide a responsible estimate until work is already underway, essentially leaving you with a dice roll and hoping for a triple natural 20. ...