Held on 15 September 2022

Estimates Are Lies

I cry when my clients tell me that they spend hours in estimation sessions with their tech teams, coaxing ever-more detailed estimates out of the engineers. One even told me recently that they start with a "pre-grooming" before their "grooming" which ends with "backlog refinement". Stop it already!

We would all love to predict the future, and if any of you have figured out how, let's plan a trip to the racetrack. Until then, I'm telling you that tech estimates are just as good as the racing form or the prognostications of stock tippers, which is to say not at all. And you don't need the predictions—present performance is enough.

Over and over, I've taught teams and leaders of tech organisations to dramatically shorten their feedback loops so estimates become a distant memory, freeing up masses of time and energy for doing the actual engineering and testing and learning. Join me on this free livestream to discuss:

The "tilted slider" that shows why you feel like estimates will help you—and why you're wrong.
How slicing elephants the right way round unlocks your tech team's latent knowledge about fast feedback.
Why your "tech demos" are useless and how to make them vital sources of information and critique.