4. Software is Learning, Not Construction
Here’s one problem I have with estimation. Software is not construction. We can’t build software the same way we construct or manufacture something. Software is all about learning and innovating as a team. Some people think that software is invention. Whatever you think about software, it is not construction.
We can timebox our learning. We can choose to stop doing something. We can put acceptance or release criteria around it and say, “We have done enough for now.”
But, we cannot say, “We can build this software for $xx per square foot.” We don’t know how to do that. Because we have not built exactly this software before. If we had built software like this before, we could estimate pretty darn close, ...
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