undefined | Better HN

0 pointsalexhutcheson6y ago0 comments

"Figure out how to do this" (aka create a high-level design) is a task, and you should be treat it the same way as you treat implementing a "chunk": estimate the effort it takes, prioritize it, and then work on it. The only wrinkle here is that you should not try to estimate any "chunks" of the implementation until you've finished your initial high-level design - there's no point estimating when you don't know what the "chunks" are. For big systems you may need to iterate on this a couple times to design sub-components of the larger system and create prototypes for systems that are critical to the project but might not work, etc.

Estimation is incremental - sometimes you need to spend some non-trivial effort gathering the information you need before you can estimate the relative effort in building a system.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

avereveard6y ago· 1 in thread

> Figure out how to do this is a task

this is the crux of the issue.

on average you can estimate six month of work if you spend two weeks chopping it into tiny bits. rarely management allow that to happen and developers are rushed in with aggressive randomness.

these "developers are bad at estimating" pieces are mostly people that try to estimate effort from complexity which is the wrong approach a priory because complexity hides the project unknowns, and this methodology, along all other comparative methods, is just a Gaussian curve built out off gut feelings: sometimes converges to a realistic estimate for large enough values, but more often than not the center just shows the developer team bias.

xyzzy_plugh6y ago

I wish I could transplant this insight into the mind of every project manager.

Throughout my career, tasks which can be estimated relative to similar or identical tasks from recent history are the exception, and the rest is indeed gut feelings on complexity.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse