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> 2. Accurate estimation of development times is impossible (not difficult, actually theoretically impossible). All estimates of development times are wrong, some by more than an order of magnitude.

Some are useful. The goal isn’t to be right in that there’s no award for perfect estimates, that would be stupid. But having an estimate, especially with relevance to multiple features is helpful.

At one time a team I worked on used “story point cards” and each person would estimate blindly and the discuss. It was interesting hearing people’s reasons behind their magnitudes.

Over time the story estimates got pretty good. But the number was completely useless objectively and made no sense when comparing teams or different projects.




Yeah, there are methods of getting to a useful "it's about this big" estimate.

The real pain is turning estimates into deadlines. "About this big" doesn't equate to "it'll be finished on Thursday".


It should not be express as size then. It should be expressed in dice!

“This story is 4D6, that one about a D20”


haha, love it. "Difficulty estimate: 15. Roll a d20 every day to see if it's completed, with a +1 modifier per day"




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