Blah.Blah.Blog

For when an estimate is handed over to it's owners, it ceases to become wrapped in the hazy, back-of-an-envelope best guess caveats you lovingly coocooned it in when it was delivered, and magically transforms into an unequivocally absolute truth of startling definition and clarity.

Your estimate has just joined death and taxes as the only absolutes in their universe.

And with their newborn nestled in their arms, the parents go rushing off into the waiting world and proclaim the certainty and precision of the estimate with a confidence and exhuberance only parents can sustain... until that day

That day that every parent dreads...

That day when they realize their little baby is all grown up and somehow isn't going to turn out quite the way they thought they would. What they were positive beyond belief was going to be an estimate they could bet the farm on turned out to be just that, an estimate - with all the inherent uncertainty that goes along with such a thing.

If I could stop beating the baby/parent metaphor with a stick at this point, what I'd give my right lung for is an Observable pattern I could place on my customers when I give them estimates of any nature to allow me to be notified of any communication of this estimate to anyone else. Here's how it might work in practice:

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(Scene opens on meeting between our hero and his customer)

Andy: OK, I think it's going to take somewhere around 30 hours, but only given the conditions I've listed here... and don't forget that three of these requirements need further clarification by yourself as I've only assumed possible meanings.

Customer: Sure, thanks muchly kind developer (wanders off)

(meanwhile, Andy's coding away in his cubic-hell when from out of nowhere...)

Bzzzzt!

Andy: Aha - my trusty customer is talking about my estimate to their boss. Quick Robin - to the Bat Poles (tm)(r)(c)

Da-na Na-na-na Na-na

(Jump cut to Andy approaching the Customer and their boss having a water cooler conversation)

Customer: ... and the best thing is - we can definitely have this done in a little over 2 days, so there's no risk of it missing the deadline on Friday!

Andy: Gotcha!

(fade to black)

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Seriously though, this is a continuous problem for our team as we're frequently called upon to make estimates on less than the full facts, and whilst we're usually on or around the money, every now and then we get a statistically significant blip in our estimates and all the underruns don't seem to get anywhere near as much attention as a decent sized overrun.

I'll blog more on this topic later.