Excellent article. About that sixth sense: I had a manager press me as to why I had added 30% to an estimate as a contingency. What was it for? I said that I couldn't say what was going to go wrong, but based on the size and scope of the spec, I knew that something would. Of course, then when that something did come up, I had to put on my lawyer's hat and prove that I didn't deliberately cause it or overlook it in my estimate (in that case it was api changes from an ecommerce partner that they didn't feel they had to tell us about.).
Excellent article. About that sixth sense: I had a manager press me as to why I had added 30% to an estimate as a contingency. What was it for? I said that I couldn't say what was going to go wrong, but based on the size and scope of the spec, I knew that something would. Of course, then when that something did come up, I had to put on my lawyer's hat and prove that I didn't deliberately cause it or overlook it in my estimate (in that case it was api changes from an ecommerce partner that they didn't feel they had to tell us about.).
ahh! but it is my old enemy broken API contracts.
Ohhh yes. People don’t understand that sixth sense. It’s also hard to explain. But it’s definitely a thing!