5.11. Living with Estimates
Estimates—you can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. They are unavoidable. There are few software projects that can get funded without some sort of budgetary and time estimate. An estimate is the most objective goal to which those who pay the bills can hold the team accountable for results. Just because we can't live without them, however, doesn't mean that we should ignore the problems of living with them. If we understand the problems created by estimation, we can better cope with them.
Whenever you provide and estimate or bid for a project, every change can become scrutinized so carefully that it often becomes prohibitively expensive and difficult to process even tremendously beneficial changes that are ...
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