What I've found is that when engineers are sensitive to giving estimates its a symptom of some sort of insecurity around their work. They're probably also feeling that they are 'outside' the decision making/power structure.
What helps is first identifying why an engineer is feeling insecure about their job, imposter syndrome, some sort of life events you may not know about. If the engineer hasn't been having issues delivering, then you want to really talk with them and find out what it is. Why do they feel they're going to get in trouble or 'beat up' if they don't hit the estimate. If they have been having issues, then you should be identifying why those issues have been having, but that is a whole different set of issues than what I think this thread is talking about.
If they are feeling outside, this is probably evidence that this engineer feels that they've been shut out giving input for the 'how' or 'why' questions surrounding the design of the project. They also maybe having resistance to opting into what the goal/product is. Perhaps the goal isn't clear, perhaps the goal isn't well defined, or there is some bigger issues.
Finally, if you as a manager aren't constantly getting estimates as the project is progressing, especially if you aren't using an agile framework, then you need to. If you are using it, have you pointed your backlog without input of the team? Are the scores stale and if you repointed, with new info the scores would be much different?
If you (anyone reading this) are a manager and you think your job is to get an estimate and drive your engineers towards that, then you are only doing only a superficial part of the job.
What helps is first identifying why an engineer is feeling insecure about their job, imposter syndrome, some sort of life events you may not know about. If the engineer hasn't been having issues delivering, then you want to really talk with them and find out what it is. Why do they feel they're going to get in trouble or 'beat up' if they don't hit the estimate. If they have been having issues, then you should be identifying why those issues have been having, but that is a whole different set of issues than what I think this thread is talking about.
If they are feeling outside, this is probably evidence that this engineer feels that they've been shut out giving input for the 'how' or 'why' questions surrounding the design of the project. They also maybe having resistance to opting into what the goal/product is. Perhaps the goal isn't clear, perhaps the goal isn't well defined, or there is some bigger issues.
Finally, if you as a manager aren't constantly getting estimates as the project is progressing, especially if you aren't using an agile framework, then you need to. If you are using it, have you pointed your backlog without input of the team? Are the scores stale and if you repointed, with new info the scores would be much different?
If you (anyone reading this) are a manager and you think your job is to get an estimate and drive your engineers towards that, then you are only doing only a superficial part of the job.