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Discussion on: Why developers are SO sh*t at estimating!

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phizzard profile image
Phil Tietjen

At a previous job, we used to estimate time and log time on our sprint tasks. I am very guilty of underestimating tasks from optimism, pressure, and trying to impress. Eventually I got better by just adding a padding of time from my actual estimates, but if I went over that then I would feel super poopy.

These days where I am uses points and so far it's been far less stressful being constraint to an approximate amount of work than being constraint to a time to be done.

Not that points is the answer but it's been better for me!

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Luke Garrigan

I've used a point system also but we end up converting the points into days anyway. Like 1 point would be half a day, 2 points is a day, 3 points is 2 days, etc. I don't know whether that's just company-specific, but I like the idea of using points without the conversion to time!

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Phil Tietjen

A lot of it I'd imagine is company-specific. We don't do straight time conversions because points have to account for initial work, work post PR to address comments, and QA.

It's been an adjustment but it's been pretty good so far.