WHY ESTIMATES MAKE ME FROWN

ಠ╭╮ಠ

DO

YO

U S

MIL

E W

HE

N Y

OU

ES

TIM

AT

E?

ESTIMATE

GUESS

Empirically derived intelligent

GUESS GUESS

Empirically derived,

consensus based

intelligent

IF ESTIMATES WERE ACCURATE WE WOULD CALL THEM FACTS

EXPERT JUDGEMENT BASED

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS BASED

EXPRESSED AS A “RANGE”

EXPRESSED IN PROBABILITIES OR PERCENTILE CONFIDENCE

Guesses on Known-Knowns and Tolerance for Known-Unknowns

WHAT YOU KNOW YOU KNOW

What you know you don’t know

What you don’t

know, you don’t

know

“I DON’T KNOW”

ESTIMATES PREDISPOSE US TO A SOLUTION

Benefits

Estimates ES

TIM

AT

ES

A

NC

HO

R B

EN

EF

ITS

benefit

time

time to market (?)

ac

tua

l m

ark

et

be

ne

fit

(?)

UNCERTAINTY

Cost to estimate

Time spent to estimate

benefit

time

In order to arrive at any “estimate”

(i) Some TIME is spent AND

(ii) There is a COST to arrive at this estimate

NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH

estimate

Also, loss of benefit outcomes that

were available ONLY if we had began

work instead.

benefit

estimate

Start “Work”

BAD BUSINESSWhen cost to arrive at

Estimate is greater than the

actual benefit derived from

work, it is just bad business

Projects that get cancelled or

drastically reduced in scope

after months of estimating

effort.

Bre

ak-E

ve

n P

oin

t

SADDLE UP MY UNICORN

benefit

timeestimate

break-even

Start “Work”

Ab

an

do

nm

en

t

I don’t

think a

unicorn

exists

Maybe we

should give

up

ESTIMATES ADD TO ILLUSION OF FEASIBILITY

What? !!,

and have

Nothing to

show

for our

efforts!

We still

have

some

time left,

lets keep

looking

benefit

timeestimate abandon

break-even

Start “Work”

PENALTIES FOR EARLY DELIVERY

Reduced Budget next-cycle

Gold Platting

Pursuit of perfection over good-enough

Peer Pressure: You are making us look bad

Feature Creep - More is better

Benefit from Delivering on

Estimate > Benefit from

Delivering Early

benefit

timeestimate

“expected” or “accepted”

tolerance zone

abandon

break-even

Start “Work”

actual

“best” OR “least-worst” Outcome

PENALTIES FOR LATE DELIVERY

Dependency Domino

Poor quality of product

Poor quality of life of people working on product

“Estimates help build an illusion of

schedule - guile us into passing risk

down the chain until this risk

balloons into an unmanageable

fiasco”

benefit

timeestimate

“expected” or “accepted”

tolerance zone

Time spent to estimate

Cost to estimate

Start “Work”

ANCHORING EFFECT

Awareness of Estimate has

“pinching” effect - Eroding

benefits from outcomes when

work is completed outside of

tolerance zone.

benefit

time

benefit

time

ESTIMATING CONSTRAINTS OUTCOMES WITHIN INVERTED U-SHAPE

THAT’S WHY I FROWN ಠ╭╮ಠ

benefit

time

benefit

time