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We all have been there
(spaffel.social)
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this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Well, at least they can see the baby steps that way I guess.
But I've always wondered if I'm actually terrible at my job or if PMPs, Scrum Masters, Management, etc, can't actually fathom that I have absolutely no way to roughly estimate how long something can possibly take that ive never done before, and I have no evidence someone else has done it before.
When I was younger I got so frustrated with it I asked if anyone else on the team wanted to do it instead, and there was a resounding no, but it's feasible so you should keep at it. And eventually I get it working but the whole time it's demoralizing with the amount of "why are you not done?"
And now I just give the exact details that goes straight over everyone's heads anyway and ask if they need me to switch my priorities.
Well, often they know it´s hard to estimate, but the entire corporate system is built around having things done by a certain date, your time costs money and payments are usually linked to those dates. They don´t really have a choice but to make a planning based on the estimates you give and monitor the progress so they can give the proper level of panic to their bosses. Of course, software has always been a disaster with estimates and attempts to tame the chaos haven´t been that successful.
I usually make a ridiculously detailed list of all tasks. ¨Add button A on screen. Discuss details: 2 hours. Interface work: 0.5 hour. Code work: 2 hours. Database work: 2 hours. Testing: 2 hours. FAT: 2 hours. Changes after FAT: 1 hour. SAT: 2 hour. Test script: 1 hour. Update documentation: 2 hours. Add button B ... ¨ Put it all in an excel sheet and summarize. Most PMs don´t even want to start arguing a list like that, and it seems to make a reasonably good estimate for me.