Chapter 23. Politics, Negotiation, and Problem Solving

Applicability of Techniques in This Chapter
 

Principled Negotiation

What’s Estimated

Size, Effort, Features, Schedule

Size of Project

S M L

Development Stage

Early–Late

Iterative or Sequential

Both

Accuracy Possible

N/A

Philip Metzger observed decades ago that technical staff were fairly good at estimation but were poor at defending their estimates (Metzger 1981), and I haven’t seen much evidence that technical staff have gotten better at defending their estimates in recent years. This chapter describes the reasons for the difficulty of getting an estimate accepted and an approach to help you negotiate estimates successfully.

Attributes of Executives

One issue in estimate negotiations arises from ...

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