Oh, those engineers - always overestimating



  • [url=http://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/26j3ta/oh_those_engineers_always_overestimating/]I think this belongs here.[/url]



  • In my last performance review, management penalised me because my time estimates for a certain project "are always wrong". First of all, my estimates are accurate given the shitty legacy codebase, it's not my fault you (management) decided they were too high and forced me to lower them "otherwise the client won't accept them". Secondly, if you don't like my estimates, don't fucking ask me to estimate - do it yourselves, that way my valuable time doesn't get wasted on work you're going to ignore anyway. Thirdly, the guys who previously worked on the project never got crapped on even though their estimates were also always "wrong", so why is this only a problem now? Lastly, why the fuck did you take on this client without asking YOUR DEVELOPERS - you know, the guys who are actually going to be DOING THE WORK - what they thought of the codebase and how it would affect timelines?

    On an unrelated note I'm currently looking for a new job, where I don't have to deal with dumbshit clients and even dumber shit management drones. Give me a spec, leave me alone for 8 hours, and let me get the job done. I really miss the days of waterfall development, "agile" seems to be the new buzzword for "make everything the developers' problem so management can never get blamed when things go wrong, but can take all the credit when they go right". Fuck "managers".



  •  Jezus Christ on a bicyle! These people should be shot. How can such morons rise to such heights?



  • @TGV said:

     Jezus Christ on a bicyle! These people should be shot. How can such morons rise to such heights?

    Peter Principle?



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    I'm currently looking for a new job, where I don't have to deal with dumbshit clients and even dumber shit management drones.
    Yeah, good luck with that.



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    I really miss the days of waterfall development, "agile" seems to be the new buzzword for "make everything the developers' problem so management can never get blamed when things go wrong, but can take all the credit when they go right". Fuck "managers".

     

    I can see how agile can be shoehorned this way, but the same can happen with waterfall, too. So the problem definitely is management, not agile.

    @The_Assimilator said:


    Give me a spec, leave me alone for 8 hours, and let me get the job done.

     

    You should like Scrum, then. Although you would get only 7h50m, because of the Daily Scrum meeting,

     



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    On an unrelated note I'm currently looking for a new job, where I don't have to deal with dumbshit clients and even dumber shit management drones.
     

    I would also like a pony.

     



  • @The_Assimilator said:

    In my last performance review, management penalised me because my time estimates for a certain project "are always wrong". First of all, my estimates are accurate given the shitty legacy codebase, it's not my fault you (management) decided they were too high and forced me to lower them "otherwise the client won't accept them". Secondly, if you don't like my estimates, don't fucking ask me to estimate - do it yourselves, that way my valuable time doesn't get wasted on work you're going to ignore anyway. Thirdly, the guys who previously worked on the project never got crapped on even though their estimates were also always "wrong", so why is this only a problem now? Lastly, why the fuck did you take on this client without asking YOUR DEVELOPERS - you know, the guys who are actually going to be DOING THE WORK - what they thought of the codebase and how it would affect timelines?

    On an unrelated note I'm currently looking for a new job, where I don't have to deal with dumbshit clients and even dumber shit management drones. Give me a spec, leave me alone for 8 hours, and let me get the job done. I really miss the days of waterfall development, "agile" seems to be the new buzzword for "make everything the developers' problem so management can never get blamed when things go wrong, but can take all the credit when they go right". Fuck "managers".

    My estimates are always too high on purpose. At my last job it was to dissuade management from agreeing to build something ridiculous and at my new job it's to give us enough time to do the task while buzzed. Ad agencies are great, you should look for a job at one.



  • Good rul of thumb for task level (approx one day) estimates.... 50% of the estimates should come in within 50% (ie between 1/2 the time and 1.5 the estimated time). The others can be bigger or smaller. HOWEVER (isnt there always one), when a sufficient quantity (say 50-100) are aggregated the totals should be much closer to the truth:

    20% - Fair
    15% - Good
    10% - Great
     5% - Are you really develoiping software???? <grin> 



  • @aapis said:

    My estimates are always too high on purpose. At my last job it was to dissuade management from agreeing to build something ridiculous and at my new job it's to give us enough time to do the task while buzzed. Ad agencies are great, you should look for a job at one.
     

    Mine are too high on purpose to give me wiggle room when unknown unknowns come calling.  And if none show up, I get things dune well under budget and it makes me look good: the Montgomery Scott Estimating Principle.

     



  • @Mason Wheeler said:

    @aapis said:

    My estimates are always too high on purpose. At my last job it was to dissuade management from agreeing to build something ridiculous and at my new job it's to give us enough time to do the task while buzzed. Ad agencies are great, you should look for a job at one.
     

    Mine are too high on purpose to give me wiggle room when unknown unknowns come calling.  And if none show up, I get things dune well under budget and it makes me look good: the Montgomery Scott Estimating Principle.

     

    I hope you realize your manager keeps track of your estimates and performance, and applies a correction factor to scale them down. Because they all do that.



  • @Captain Oblivious said:

    I hope you realize your manager keeps track of your estimates and performance, and applies a correction factor to scale them down. Because they all do that.

    Depends on how your company handles billing, I know mine inflates every estimate as we bill based on estimate (and I don't think actual time is tracked for anything).



  • @locallunatic said:

    I don't think actual time is tracked for anything
     

    wha



  • @dhromed said:

    @locallunatic said:
    I don't think actual time is tracked for anything
    wha

    It's recorded, but I don't know if it is possible for the shity internal tool to report totals that were entered. They aren't used in officially evaluating people (though if someone regularly under estimates more is tacked on when giving the estimate to the customer).


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