Managing Up

Estimation: Where Everything is Made Up and the Points Don't Matter

Episode Summary

Estimation is the bane of many software developers' existence. Nick, Travis, and Brandon discuss (and argue) about why estimation can be valuable, whether it's too expensive, and what you can do to help your team deliver consistent value whether or not you're expected to estimate software.

Episode Notes

Estimation is the bane of many software developers' existence. Nick, Travis, and Brandon discuss (and argue) about why estimation can be valuable, whether it's too expensive, and what you can do to help your team deliver consistent value whether or not you're expected to estimate software.

We estimated this episode should last about 30 minutes, so naturally it's just over 50.

• John Cutler on twitter: Hybrid Kanban board
  • https://twitter.com/johncutlefish/status/1080740227092639744
• Scrum Guide (It's actually good and a quick read)
  • https://www.scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf
• Dave Thomas: Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility)
  • https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile.html
• Martin Fowler: The State of Agile in 2018
  • https://martinfowler.com/articles/agile-aus-2018.html
• Welcome to Scrum, where everything is made up and the points don't matter
  • https://memegenerator.net/instance/46928911/welcome-to-whose-line-welcome-to-scrum-where-everything-is-made-up-and-the-points-dont-matter
• Nickolas Means: The Original Skunk Works
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL3Yzjk5R4M
• Soft Skills Engineering podcast
  • https://softskills.audio/