October 29, 2003
Estimates and Relationships
Unrealistically low estimates sometimes result from bullying by project managers, according to an experience recently related by Chris Brown.
This set me thinking about estimates from the perspective of the project manager.
As well as managing relationships with developers, a project manager obviously needs to manage relationships with people in the client organisation. The client will have been given an expectation about when the application will be delivered, based on an original estimate. And, as I alluded to recently, the original estimate may have been a bad one.
Bad estimates are made, surprises occur in software development projects. These are realities we have to live with. And it is the project manager that is often left with the juggling act of managing relationships with clients and developers.
Bullying developers to give lower estimates and then demanding overtime is obviously not a humane or sustainable approach. But spare a thought for the project manager - they may be under significant external pressure due to unrealistic expectations having been set early on.
Being able to negotiate a way through a project keeping good relationships with customers and developers intact is, in my opinion, an art and the sign of a mature project manager.
And continually improving the ability to provide good estimates is the sign of a maturing software development organisation.
Posted to Peopleware, Software Development by Keith PittyA project manager should NEVER provide an estimate by using his own programming knowledge, but rather aggregate the expectations of the individual developers.
Having schedules pushed on you by people who are unqualified to judge the work is the worst!
I agree that Project Managers have a very difficult job, they are usually stuck between Clients and Developers and are trying to satisfy both and when slippage occurs they are usually the fall guy. The key as I see it is honesty from all parties involved. Once the developers start giving false estimates (for whatever reason) or project managers give a false schedules to the client things are bound to fail.
Posted by: Chris Brown at October 29, 2003 8:11 PMGabriel: I agree that project managers shouldn't provide estimates, but I'm not convinced that developers are in the best position to estimate their own tasks. They are prone to giving low estimates to please their superior. Perhaps developers in the team should estimate each other's tasks?
Chris: Agreed, honesty is the quality that is indeed the key.
Posted by: Keith Pitty at October 29, 2003 8:51 PM