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It is well understood that developing solutions to complex problems is not an industrial process.
It is full of uncertainties, research, ongoing problems and stoppers, but since these solutions always have a supporting business case, we have to be ready to deal with plans and schedules for getting things into production.
In this regard, one of the most difficult tribulations in routine work in the tech industry is when somebody asks for an estimate. If you want a seasoned senior engineer to sweat, ask them for an estimation over a user story: “When will this be ready?”. I have always felt that the underlying problem is that expectations and roles over this process have never been correctly understood.
This way, we usually think about estimations in terms of the cost and effort needed for developing a feature, but in reality, the conversation is all about when something will be ready.
What if we could change our mental model about estimations? What if there is a model that removes toil from the process while increasing trust and commitment?
In this talk, I propose a method of switching estimations from cost and effort to a probability map for time of delivery, making conversations about estimates easier with engineers and useful for stakeholders in order to have a better answer to … “When will this be ready?”
