At one company, the division had to be bailed out twice by head office, because we lost money on every single project, and they were sick of it. The bids were based on the estimated development costs, those estimates were too low, and no one was held to account.
And so, management decreed the "summer of re-estimating". All the estimates were wildly unrealistic, so management demanded an entire reestimation of all projects. They wanted real, accurate estimates. "And you'll be held to these". So the departments spent 8 full weeks estimating everything all over again.
And when they were complete, they were submitted to our immediate manager, who... slashed them by 80% because "these numbers are too high"
This was also a company where they did "Lessons Learned" that had conclusions that said "don't underestimate". And then, when the same business function reappeared, engineers were ordered to underestimate because "you've already done this before, so it should be faster this time".
When I asked one manager why her second pregnancy wasn't only five months instead of nine, because she'd done it before, I was (thankfully) moved to a different and (somewhat) less insane management team.
Allow me to tattoo "fast, cheap, good: pick one" on your forehead
Oh, dear! It was always "pick two" before!
Silly me. Think before engaging fingers 😜
We can give you realistic delivery windows and we can deliver what the customer actually wants or we can tell you the timeline you want to hear.
$BOSS asks me to estimate something.
Me: Where are the requirements?
$BOSS: "Not ready until next week, but we need the estimate this week. Just copy the Berlin project; it's just like Berlin"
Okay, it's that kind of company.
Me: "Uh huh". So I spend a few hours, break it into about 40 items, estimate 1800 hours.
$BOSS is unhappy. "Don't break it down so much. When you break things down that much it ends up inflating the numbers."
No, I tell him, it will still be about 1800 hours no matter how you break it up.
Then $DEV2 walks in. $BOSS tells *him* to do the estimate, instead of me.
Same question, where are the requirements, same answer.
$DEV2 doesn't bat an eye. "2000 hours", he says.
"Come on, guys", $BOSS says. "He says 1800 hours, you say 2000 hours... there's only 300 hours in the budget!"
Okay, so...
If it's already been budgeted, what do you need a requirements estimate for?
If the requirements aren't ready yet, what was that budget based on?
Why even bother?
If you noticed, the process order was 1) budget done, 2) then estimates were requested, then 3) the requirements would follow.
The exact opposite sequence of cause and effect.
And no one in management either noticed or cared.
And when $DEV2 and I both estimated 6-7 times what the budget was, the question wasn't why the budget was so low, but why our estimates were so high
And that, your honour, is why I told PMO I didn't care about metrics or budgets in their company. They were pre-ordained.
☹️
At one company, the division had to be bailed out twice by head office, because we lost money on every single project, and they were sick of it. The bids were based on the estimated development costs, those estimates were too low, and no one was held to account.
And so, management decreed the "summer of re-estimating". All the estimates were wildly unrealistic, so management demanded an entire reestimation of all projects. They wanted real, accurate estimates. "And you'll be held to these". So the departments spent 8 full weeks estimating everything all over again.
And when they were complete, they were submitted to our immediate manager, who... slashed them by 80% because "these numbers are too high"
This was also a company where they did "Lessons Learned" that had conclusions that said "don't underestimate". And then, when the same business function reappeared, engineers were ordered to underestimate because "you've already done this before, so it should be faster this time".
When I asked one manager why her second pregnancy wasn't only five months instead of nine, because she'd done it before, I was (thankfully) moved to a different and (somewhat) less insane management team.
Someone must’ve read my post this morning 😂
Smells like time for some malicious compliance! 😇
The saddest part is that management always take the shorter time to make decisions and planning...
Hahahahaah, price shopping at it's best