Estimating
In an Agile World.
It’s causing you a lot of pain
I’ll tell you how I know that
right after this.
My name is Gary Straughan
Welcome to Development That Pays
And welcome to the first of several episodes
on the subject of estimating.
When I asked you - at the end of last year - about your Agile frustrations.
… there were more mentions of estimating / estimation
than any other subject.
So my task was clear:
an episode or three on estimation.
Which gives me a bit of a problem.
#1 - I am a developer
#2 - I HATE estimating
I go to great lengths to avoid it.
Or so I thought
until something caught my eye….
This is the back door of my house.
It’s in a terrible state of repair.
It hasn’t been properly maintained
It hasn’t been properly maintained… on purpose.
And that’s because we’ve been planning to replace these doors.
For more than a decade.
So each time the exterior woodwork is painted,
we’ve missed these doors out.
What the heck have these doors got to do with estimation?
These doors - or rather - their replacement
have been a major cause of estimating.
By me!
You see, we don’t want to just change the doors.
We want to do something different.
A different style of door.
And we’re even thinking of opening up the gap
for a better view of the garden.
So I’ve been juggling the various costs of different door styles:
Bi-fold, sliding, Crittall, pivot.
I even looked at this rather wonderful design
And all the above… in different sizes
Factoring in the cost of the building work
to install a lintel and open up the gap.
Hold on a sec!
What’s going on here?
Well, I’m juggling options to try to get the best combination for the lowest cost.
Oh.
You mean:
How come the “Developer That Won’t Estimate”
is spending his free time
estimating
Hmm. Good point.
Back to the replacement of these old doors project.
The next step will be to get someone around to quote for the job.
Here’s a conversation I’ve imagined:
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a software developer.”
“Agile?”
“Yes, I try to.”
That's great. We at the Acme Building Co work that way too.”
Really? That's excellent!
“We’ll work with you to prioritise the work.”
“And it will be ready when it’s ready.”
“And it will be cost what it will cost.”
Would you proceed on that basis?
What’s my point?
Whether we realise it or not, we all estimate all the time.
What changes is our role - and the context.
What's interesting:
We like to get estimates.
We're much less keen to provide estimates.
Gary the home owner… likes to get estimates for home improvement projects
Gary the developer… does not like to provide estimates for software development projects
So is it time to Gary the Developer to put on big boy trousers
and start cranking out estimates?
No it isn’t.
And I’ll tell you exactly why it isn’t
at the beginning of the very next episode.
Thank you very much for watching.
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Cheers for now.