DEV Community

Discussion on: What's your worst estimate story?

Collapse
 
dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim • Edited

I had a 2 week long project (initial estimation) that lasted for 5 months.

Problems.

  1. 🔬 The scope was never defined - There was no "done" state.
  2. 📝 Requests/Changes were never documented - steakholders kept on making changes not in alignment with previous requests. But having no documentation, I could not prove that the change request would invalidate all previous implementations.
  3. 👩‍🍳 Too many cooks - There were multiple "managers" involved and each had a say on how to proceed whenever a new feature/change was needed.

Not having a clear ☀️ vision of what the outcome would look like, I was able to muddle through but it was such a horrible 😱 experience.

But now I am now armed 💪 with the experience how to prevent from that ever happening.

Collapse
 
nicolasguzca profile image
Nick

It will be awesome if you could write and article about this!

Collapse
 
dance2die profile image
Sung M. Kim • Edited

Thank you for the suggestion, @nicolasguzca .

I will try if I can come up with an outline but might not happen if it comes down to talking behind their back.