[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do you deal with managers/customers ques...
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Ask HN: How do you deal with managers/customers questioning your
estimates?
I suppose my own context is somewhat unique, in that we have a very
technical product that's used by other technical products. This
means our customers are all effectively engineers. Some of these
customers even used to work on our product. Whenever we tell them,
for example, the team has estimated it'll take X weeks to do
something, we continuously get pushback of: "Why would it possibly
take so long? All you have to do is A, B and C!" (often providing
incorrect solutions, increasing the burden of having to explain all
possible implementation strategies to them and the risks involved
with each step) I've also experienced this in previous companies
where managers, who used to be technical, do the same thing. To me
this is insanely disrespectful of the team, and it seems as though
it's a boundary violation on some level. Has anyone found a
healthy, emotionally mature response to this line of questioning?
Ideally one that results in the customer understanding that they're
crossing a boundary of sorts here. In an ideal world I'd much
prefer to not have to give estimates in the first place, and rather
involve our customers more frequently in our development process to
help them see the progress. It's hard, however, to convince them of
the value in this approach.
Author : mactavish88
Score : 64 points
Date : 2022-07-11 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
| tpoacher wrote:
| Sarcastic non-serious answer, but:
|
| > Why would it possibly take so long? All you have to do is A, B
| and C!
|
| We would be happy to deliver A, B and C _exactly as described_ at
| the proposed time. We anticipate these problems. Happy to accept
| the risk?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| To share my anecdote, the place where I work often pits
| engineers' solutions/estimates against eachother and then picks &
| promotes the "fastest" one. Never mind that typically these
| faster estimates typically overrun to make them equal in
| retrospect, oh and come with bugs and needed improvements that
| will only be "discovered" by customers over the next 24 months...
|
| le sigh
|
| /rant
| kqr wrote:
| This is basically how government contracting to the lowest
| bidder works too. The penalty for overshooting your budget by a
| lot is far less severe than missing out on the contract.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| so what's the solution?
|
| Maybe we can make engineers work for free until they deliver
| what they promised? (that's sarcasm btw).
| gxt wrote:
| > All you have to do is A, B and C
|
| I'd inquire why they are saying that. Are there requirements in
| your proposal that aren't required? Enterprise development best
| practices for instance, if the customer wants to prioritize time
| to production or time to market, it's normal for him to push
| aside writing 12 factories and 7 dlls to later/never.
| jlarocco wrote:
| > To me this is insanely disrespectful of the team, and it seems
| as though it's a boundary violation on some level.
|
| > Has anyone found a healthy, emotionally mature response to this
| line of questioning? Ideally one that results in the customer
| understanding that they're crossing a boundary of sorts here.
|
| TBH, I don't see what the big deal is. Give them the data and
| explain the thought process that went into making the estimate.
| And if you don't have any of that to give them, then I think
| they're justified in questioning the estimate.
|
| If you don't like it, switch to regular releases, and tell them
| the feature will be in the next quarterly release.
| dnndev wrote:
| I provide an initial estimate. Very high level but enough to give
| them the idea.
|
| If they want details I tell them I need to bill for the time and
| file it under project planning. Amazingly they are happy to pay
| for it and we are happy to do the paperwork they require.
|
| If they say no they won't pay then you make a judgment call on
| how important that client is to you. What I have found is if they
| nickel and dime you then your not providing value in their eyes.
| Move on to a higher value client.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Your job is to insulate your team from the normal course of
| business (customer negotiating) so that they don't feel like it's
| "insanely disrespectful." Your job is to process it unemotionally
| and handle it unemotionally. Let the customer say whatever the
| customer is going to say and then respond with a boilerplate like
| "We've considered these possibilities and appreciate the input
| but we are not flexible on our original estimate."
| awillen wrote:
| As a PM who has often had to take developer estimates to
| management meetings only to have them questioned, I've found a
| couple of things that work:
|
| 1. If there's something unintuitive to a non-technical person,
| call that up out front as a reason for the estimate. For example,
| if you're estimating how long it'll take to implement a popup,
| but there's some piece of information displayed in the popup that
| you need to get from some archaic system that is held together
| with tape and glue, you might come up with an estimate that seems
| very large to someone who thinks all you're doing is implementing
| a popup. When this happens, it's best to call it out up front
| when giving the estimate, as opposed to giving a big estimate and
| then giving the explanation only when questioned.
|
| 2. On a related note, give options. This works very well with
| toddlers (don't tell them they have to put on pajamas, ask them
| if they want to put on the red ones or the blue ones) but also
| often with PMs and management. In the prior example, instead of
| saying that it's going to take three weeks, say that it's going
| to take three weeks, but two weeks of that is because you have to
| pull this one piece of information from that archaic system. If
| we could go without displaying that piece of information, then
| the estimate is a week. If we could instead display this similar
| piece of information that's easier to get, then the estimate is a
| week and a half. When you do this, you come off as thoughtful and
| prepared, and you put the people you're talking to in a position
| where they feel like they've done something by making a choice.
|
| People generally question estimates because of a lack of context,
| so when they do so, I really encourage you to think of it not as
| them not trusting you, but rather as them attempting to get the
| context they need to understand.
|
| Some people do also question estimates because they feel like
| it's their job to haggle developers down (these people are
| annoying and do not represent most PMs). Number 2 above is a good
| way of dealing with this - it turns it from haggling into a
| negotiation over scope.
| yakak wrote:
| I've talked to people who were pretty shocked by modern time
| estimates where they sounded shocking to me as well as an
| outsider of the org but working on the same technologies.
|
| I think a lot of organizations add more and more requirements to
| "guarantee quality" after each incident and never really
| streamline again, so my first guess with a group that is opaque
| about the specifics is that it has gradually built up doing too
| much and only feels comfortable if it performs a lot of rituals.
| An idea of where you see the risks and what buffers you are using
| may make people more comfortable with your estimates being
| logical instead of the consequences of process gone awry.
| firefoxd wrote:
| Here is an exercise that might be helpful. As a developer,
| estimate was my number one fear, right before public speaking,
| and behind death. So I record myself in a self-zoom call
| explaining why I made the decision I made.
|
| On the first recording, I rambled for 15 minutes why I think it
| will take n weeks and cost x dollars. Rewatching it was painful.
| But it gives you a good idea what to take out.
|
| After the 10th recording, 2 minutes was enough to give the
| estimate and give a rough description of the work that needs to
| get done.
|
| Also, you'll have to make 10 wrong estimates before you build up
| the skin you need to say you stand by your decision. Just because
| your clients are engineers, it doesn't mean they know what it
| takes for another team to do the work.
| eslav wrote:
| Very self-aware. I like this
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| > To me this is insanely disrespectful of the team, and it seems
| as though it's a boundary violation on some level.
|
| To be fair, people asking you to justify your estimates aren't
| disrespectful. Realistically, you should be able to provide
| justification otherwise, your estimation is most likely flawed.
| And people wanting to have a better understanding of what is
| going on isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just like you would ask
| your joiner why it's going to cost X and take Y days, you want to
| have a good understanding of what is happening and to be
| informed.
| rexpop wrote:
| > people asking you to justify your estimates aren't
| disrespectful
|
| In my experience, people are only _pretending_ to ask you to
| justify estimates. In reality, they are just angling for a
| discount and/or rush job. It's just a technique for increasing
| anxiety.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Sometimes they legitimately don't know. It's a good
| opportunity to help them understand how much work goes into
| what you do.
|
| I recommend not default-reacting to "why does it take so
| long? Isn't it just A, B, and C?" as an expression of
| _pushback_ , but rather just as an expression of _honest
| confusion_.
| batmaniam wrote:
| But OP is saying they consistently do this. At that point,
| it's a pattern, and it's intentional.
|
| And I do agree with OP: every company does this. They want
| to squeeze every bit of work out of you, and this comes in
| other forms, not just through 'agile estimates'.
| Communications across teams that emphasize 'work-hard play-
| hard' also fall under this, and the 'play-hard' never
| actually comes. It's just new time-crunched work that gets
| dumped onto you. Or 'move-fast teams', or 'OKRs', etc.
|
| The entire corporate infrastructure and communications is
| designed around pressuring workers to work more and more.
| Sure, there might be some great managers that can push
| back, but how many of them have you encountered across all
| the jobs you've been at? Most of my experiences have been
| what OP has said, most teams are terrible.
|
| It's not a coincidence that the Tech Burnout Index is
| almost 43% across all of tech. Which means any job you jump
| to will have a good chance to burn you out some way or
| another. Which means all the crap that developers
| experience that burns them out is nearly ubiquitous,
| including being constantly grilled on estimates.
|
| Burnout Index: https://f.hubspotusercontent30.net/hubfs/767
| 7235/The%20State...
| jbay808 wrote:
| Even if it's consistent behaviour, I'd consistently
| answer the same way, treating it as honest ignorance.
| Tasks always look simpler from the outside.
|
| If that conversation is happening with senior management,
| it can also identify some consistent mismatch between
| their perception and reality. ( _Didn 't your team get 5
| new hires last year?_ _Yes but two are on leave and we
| also took over responsibility for customer-facing
| documentation from marketing_ ). Or reveal new priorities
| when consistent themes come up -- maybe the testing
| process is being slowed down by a growing matrix of
| product configurations, and management had no idea how
| much work that creates.
|
| When the language shifts to something like "regardless of
| your estimate, we need it done by the end of Q3, so make
| it happen", _then_ I treat it as pushback.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _Sometimes they legitimately don 't know. It's a good
| opportunity to help them understand how much work goes into
| what you do._
|
| In my experience, they _definitely_ don 't know. But no
| amount of explanation is going to do it for them; _any_
| explanation is going to be met with stuff like "well,
| there _must_ be a simpler way ", which is a hell of a
| statement when it comes from someone who has no idea what
| they're talking about.
|
| And oftentimes, at the point where you're making the
| estimate, you _don 't_ know how long "A, B, and C" are
| going to take. You might know how long they will take if
| the system underpinning "A, B, and C" do their jobs, but
| they inevitably _won 't_ do their jobs, and the extra time
| is usually working around the failings in systems that you
| have no choice but to use.
| jlarocco wrote:
| That's a toxic attitude.
|
| The software is being written for the customer and/or
| management, and they're paying for it. They have a legitimate
| right to know why the estimate is what it is, and to
| understand what work is going to be done. If they want to
| exclude parts of it because they don't see the value, then
| that's up to them because they get what they pay for.
|
| If you can't explain _why_ it 's a bad idea to cut certain
| parts out, or why certain things take the time that they do,
| then it's a failure on _your_ part as the engineer, and not
| theirs.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| There's a difference between asking an expert for their
| opinion and commensurate respect for the effort it takes to
| provide it, and demeaning an expert because you dont like
| their answer. I sense that OP was indicating that they felt
| undermined and attacked for their honest take. Being
| attacked for your best effort is _also toxic_
| [deleted]
| kqr wrote:
| But sometimes _I don 't know_ why it's a bad idea ahead of
| time! That doesn't mean I'm wrong -- often time reveals
| what it was I was subconsciously worried about.
|
| That's what expertise is sometimes like: an accurate gut
| feeling, impossible to articulate clearly.
| mpalczewski wrote:
| In that case one must be assertive. Speaking this way
| does not come naturally especially to engineers.
|
| You don't have to articulate it clearly, you don't have
| to know why you are making the estimate you are making.
| It's ok for management to push, in fact it is their job.
|
| I suggest this book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IK8Q22
| jlarocco wrote:
| I agree, _sometimes_ it is just a gut feeling, but a lot
| of times expertise means knowing where the gut feeling
| comes from and being able to explain it.
|
| If nothing else, management will be more trusting in
| those situations if you give good and accurate estimates
| the rest of the time and are able to justify them.
| mactavish88 wrote:
| It's the telling the team how to do their job I find
| disrespectful. If all they were asking for was more information
| on the estimates, it'd be a different story.
|
| The presumption in their attitude and approach is that our team
| doesn't know what they're doing and they could do it better,
| even though they haven't put in the effort to do the scoping.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _we continuously get pushback of: "Why would it possibly take
| so long? All you have to do is A, B and C!" (often providing
| incorrect solutions, increasing the burden of having to explain
| all possible implementation strategies to them and the risks
| involved with each step)_
|
| "Your estimate assumes the absolute best case scenario, and also
| assumes that we'll be working on nothing _but_ your request. Our
| original estimate stands. "
| otsaloma wrote:
| By my experience engineers tend to way underestimate schedules
| and those are the two reasons. Best case scenario means no
| suprises come up during implementation, which is almost always
| false. Roughly double the best case estimate is usually about
| right. The second though can be a miscommunication, whether the
| estimate is an actual date when done or an estimate of the man-
| hours.
| kqr wrote:
| Another problem is that engineers also tend to estimate only
| the time for original implementation, not for design,
| testing, documentation, bug fixes, meetings, etc.
|
| A long time ago I read about some research that showed that
| the original implementation makes up about 1/6 of the total
| time spent on the task. This has been roughly the case in my
| experience too -- so now I budget for at least 6x estimated
| implementation cost, more if it's a tricky problem.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > I budget for at least 6x estimated implementation cost
|
| How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?
| Arubis wrote:
| A reductive approximation: engineers estimate at 50%
| confidence (on average it will be done on this date),
| management and leadership hear that at 90% confidence (it
| will be done by this date to near certainty). Making these
| assumptions explicit up front solves tons of problems.
| d23 wrote:
| I'm not quite sure how to phrase it, but I'd try to change the
| way you're talking about it. You're not negotiating the amount of
| time it'll take. You're discussing what it would mean for it to
| take shorter or longer.
|
| For example: "if you want it done in 2 weeks instead of 2 months,
| we can get to X functionality while sacrificing Y." Or: "what
| would it mean for you if we were to get this done in 2 months
| instead of two weeks? How would it affect you?" Basically: try to
| get to more of the root of why they're questioning your estimates
| without putting on the table the notion that you can magically
| change the truth about how much time things will take.
|
| As others have said, also express your degree of uncertainty. Try
| to leave your ego out of it and make sure you're not giving them
| some sort of subconscious ammo that you're hiding something or
| being manipulative.
|
| > To me this is insanely disrespectful of the team, and it seems
| as though it's a boundary violation on some level.
|
| You're right, but if their deep belief is that your team just
| isn't adequate, you need to force them to bring it up. Yes, it
| will be insulting to find this out, but people tend to dance
| around these things with euphemisms and coded language, and one
| of the best things you can do is get it out in the open.
| nprateem wrote:
| It depends on the team's other priorities
| Galxeagle wrote:
| We moved to a somewhat set release cadence and then instead of
| discussing timeline estimates with clients, we discussed release
| scoping and what was in the next release(s).
|
| It had a helpful effect of abstracting the development team and
| helped shift the conversation away from button clicking towards a
| 'product increment' and all the extras it entails, but also from
| the customers perspective it helped engage them on a more
| meaningful level - prioritization of features vs the technical
| steps the dev team would be performing.
|
| Then we avoided justifying timeline in favour of 'if you wanted
| it for next release, we'd need to drop a/b/c or add resources
| x/y/z' beyond a cursory 'it adds some complexity with the other
| module' etc.
| Arubis wrote:
| This sounds closer to Shape Up/appetite over estimates. It's
| probably too late for OP to respond and adopt right this
| moment, but is a great approach going forward. I wrote up a
| tl;dr on this at
| https://dylanfitzgerald.net/blog/appetite_not_estimate/ if
| you're so inclined.
| kqr wrote:
| Whenever this is possible, I really like this approach. It
| emphasises what the most immediate constraint is (capacity to
| perform development) and forces prioritization within that
| constraint, rather than trying to ignore the constraint and see
| what happens.
| dqpb wrote:
| > results in the customer understanding that they're crossing a
| boundary of sorts here
|
| I think you're looking at this the wrong way. If the customer /
| manager want to get into the weeds with you, you should let them.
| Information sharing leads to good things.
|
| Giving the customer/manager details about the work required for a
| feature will help them better understand and prioritize future
| work. If you and your team are excellent, going into the
| technical details will impress the customer/manager and gain you
| the respect you are looking for.
|
| On the other hand, if you are defensive and withhold information,
| that will only erode trust and push them away. Eventually,
| they'll look for someone else to work with.
|
| As a side note, scrum boards are stupid. What people really need
| are dependency trees.
| daanlo wrote:
| I feel you.
| yayr wrote:
| what usually helps is to include some of your assumptions with
| the effort estimate - especially the ones that cause significant
| effort.
|
| In a product those typically are not so much negotiable with
| respect to the architecture. In a project they may lead the
| customer to change their architecture priorities completely.
| corrral wrote:
| Seems relevant:
|
| https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.875440864.2771/raf,750x1000,...
|
| Signs like this are so common at mechanics' shops that they're
| practically a cliche.
|
| Text:
|
| $100 / hr minimum
|
| $150 / hr if you watch
|
| $175 / hr if you help
|
| $200 / hr if you worked on it first
|
| $250 / hr if you tell me how to do my job
| jimmaswell wrote:
| > if you worked on it first
|
| I'd walk right out the door if I saw that. What kind of
| entitled baby Steve Jobs wannabe thinks they're the only one
| allowed to work on MY car? I'd sooner scrap it than support
| this behavior.
| corrral wrote:
| Eh, it's a joke about shitty DIY jobs. And you'll be walking
| out of every mechanic save some (some!) big chains, I expect,
| if that's a deal-breaker. Signs along these lines are pretty
| common.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| One guy near me whined about the fact that a different
| mechanic touched my brakes, not even me. Never going back
| to that weirdo. Everyone else understands they're not Steve
| Jobs. I've worked on most systems in my car myself and it
| doesn't even come up.
| corrral wrote:
| Well, sure, in practice someone who actually knows what
| they're doing also won't cause problems, even if they do
| happen to be the vehicle's owner. I assume these signs
| are so popular because just about every mechanic thinks
| they're funny, and they think they're funny because they
| have _all_ seen bad versions of these kinds of customers,
| probably a lot, and likely far more than they see any
| kind of good version of these.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| > I'd walk right out the door if I saw that.
|
| That's your right, of course. But as a likely computer-savvy
| person, you've probably seen examples of why this joke
| exists.
|
| You may have had to help family members with computer
| problems who first spent an hour clicking away and
| downloading shady tools trying 20 different things trying to
| solve something and have seen firsthand how their own
| attempts to fix a problem sometimes messed up the situation
| even more.
|
| I've had a family member delete some important software
| configuration file because they thought that the filename had
| some profanity in it and thought it was therefore a computer
| virus.
|
| I wouldn't dissuade anybody from trying to solve their own
| problems, but people with a little knowledge can be very
| dangerous when trying to fix stuff.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| If it's actually just a joke then it's not a big deal. I
| have dealt with a very annoying parent screwing up every
| single setting on a phone.
| jonaldomo wrote:
| I would question why you are giving customers technical estimates
| instead of giving them expected release date.
|
| Expected release dates should be broad, next month, next quarter,
| etc.
|
| Estimated release dates take into discussion what is also being
| worked by development team.
| [deleted]
| IlPeach wrote:
| You should start way earlier in the process. If you get at that
| point you have almost no leverage and if you have to deal with
| people that don't listen to you.
|
| In my own experience it's a two-fold process:
|
| - one is the ability of the engineering manager and the product
| manager to work towards a phased approach (smaller iterations
| means better chances at hitting the deadlines/estimations -if
| any)
|
| - the other one, by working closely with your stakeholders, so
| they have a good understanding of what's going on and the status
| of the team, effectively building a trust relationship.
| ineptech wrote:
| Something like: "I understand that this presents a challenge, but
| we have to test and support this code while continuing to meet
| our other commitments, and this represents our best estimate for
| the time required to accomplish this work."
|
| This is a thought-terminating cliche
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-
| terminating_clich%C3%A...), i.e. saying nothing politely. It
| contains no information; its purpose is to close that topic and
| pivot to a new one - discussing a different team doing the work,
| changing the ask, hiring contractors, etc.
|
| > Ideally one that results in the customer understanding that
| they're crossing a boundary of sorts here.
|
| A great low-conflict way to convey this is by being more
| formal/icy in your phrasing than usual.
| yobbo wrote:
| > To me this is insanely disrespectful of the team
|
| The team is probably underperforming relative to the
| expectations. This is what it feels like to be questioned and put
| under pressure. It is technically disrespect.
|
| To what standard should the team perform, and how can it be
| determined if it is?
|
| Maybe make some sort of benchmarks visible that establish the
| competence and prestige of the team.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| You are right that it's often a problem of a mismatch between
| your client expectations and what you are delivering but that's
| not disrespectful and will probably not be sorted out with a
| benchmark.
|
| From my experience, 90% of the time these mismatches come from
| a lack of or a flawed communication. The solution is to sit
| down with your customers, ask questions to understand why they
| feel what they feel and specifically address that. I think that
| in general people working in software rarely spend enough time
| talking with their clients.
|
| It's the same with managers actually. If there is a persistent
| mismatch between what you think you should be doing and what
| your manager thinks you should be doing you are not talking
| with your manager enough.
| yobbo wrote:
| > ... 90% of the time these mismatches come from a lack of or
| a flawed communication.
|
| It's important to think about how the communication is
| failing.
|
| The customer/manager might be comparing your performance with
| others who are faster or cheaper.
|
| Some might have more technical experience than you; and are
| in effect asking you to explain and justify your solutions.
|
| Or, they might not understand or care, while still being
| convinced that you are underperforming ("being incompetent").
| mactavish88 wrote:
| Part of the problem I pick up here is that, in general,
| engineers who haven't done the hard work of the actual scoping
| themselves tend to be wildly optimistic in their estimates.
|
| I'm not sure if this applies to more seasoned engineer-
| customers though. The more experienced engineer-customers
| (people who've been working for 10+ years) tend to be far more
| understanding here.
| [deleted]
| nickmyersdt wrote:
| 1. Track actuals for work items 2. Compare new work items to
| actuals 3. Give range based on risk (known unknowns, unknown
| unknowns)
|
| Fundamentally establish trust through transparency.
|
| Remember most humans are trying to justify or find reasons to do
| something. Finding out it will take too long or be too expensive
| (in their eyes) is a reason not to do it. If those people have
| already made "positive noises" to other people, then your reality
| is going to run head on to theirs.
|
| Help people, perhaps by asking up front "how much effort do you
| want to spend solving this".
|
| It's not disrespectful at all. The engineering team does not
| exist in a vacuum independent from everyone else. What does
| happen is that engineers with a lack of maturity hate to have
| their judgment questioned.
|
| Without knowing specifics of context, perhaps by understanding
| the constraints, needs of the business or limitation on budget,
| then any estimate you provide is going to be wrong in the eyes of
| the reciever.
|
| IMO anyway.
| [deleted]
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Whether you estimate something liberally or conservatively hardly
| matters. You're still going to have to stand trial for the cost
| by everyone anyway.
|
| You get better at it with time. You'll get better at arguing your
| case. You'll get better at justifying certain work.
|
| It is worthwhile to clarify to everyone that it is an estimate
| and not a promise. If someone tells you they can do it in half
| the time, then a friendly "feel free to help contribute to the
| project" can shut up people quickly.
|
| If possible, try to get away from this practice and to more agile
| practices. That way you would be able to just talk about when you
| start and cease certain work or give wild ass guesses instead of
| wasting too much time estimating.
| codegeek wrote:
| "Based on our experience, skills and expertise that we bring,
| this is our best estimate. Be advised that an estimate is not
| just writing the code but includes work for various stages
| including discussions, proposals, meetings, design, development,
| testing, user acceptance testing, fixes after testing and more
| other stages. Would you want me to give you a breakdown of those
| stages as we want to make it easy for you to understand the
| estimate"
|
| Never let someone tell you your estimate is too much. If it,s too
| much let them do it themselves.
| kgermino wrote:
| I run into this with clients all the time. It's basically a two
| part conversation for me:
|
| 1. A quick (few paragraph) run through of where I see the
| complexity that led to the estimate. This often reassures people,
| sometimes helps us discover a disconnect on the requirements
| (where I imagined something more complex than they needed), and
| is sometimes a waste of breath.
|
| 2. When (1) doesn't change anything "I don't litigate estimates.
| Based on our discussion this is my best guess at when I will be
| able to finish this for you, not a fixed bid. If I'm done early
| you'll get it early."
| pwason wrote:
| Have them give an estimate, and see who is closer at the end of
| the project. Three strikes, they stop complaining.
| IlPeach wrote:
| Risky. I've had a bad experience with a manager that on a
| similar opportunity set his own deadline and used that to put
| pressure on the team completely ignoring anything the team
| said. At the end his version was the team didn't deliver, not
| one bit that he was wrong. That mofo. I'm still bitter about
| it.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| If their estimate is always shorter than yours, they can easily
| accuse you of sandbagging to meet your estimate.
|
| A lot of bosses do that I think. They accept your estimates but
| internally they expect you to always be under the estimate.
| Accusations of laziness fly eventually if you are over
| estimate, or even meet your estimates consistently.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| It's fairly normal for customers to try to negotiate schedule and
| price. Don't feel disrespected. A good buyer will take whatever
| you are ready to give them. No boundaries are being crossed.
|
| It's therefore the role of the salesperson/whoever is in charge
| of the client at this point to set clear boundaries. It doesn't
| have to be extremely adversarial. You have to understand why your
| customers is trying to push there in case there is something to
| address - for example if they think you are underdelivering that
| needs to be worked on - then explain what can move to find a
| solution - typically reducing scope or raising the budget to go
| faster - and stand firm on what can't.
|
| If you can't emotionally deal with this process which is a job in
| and of itself you need to put someone who can in between you and
| your customer.
| mactavish88 wrote:
| In previous jobs where we were negotiating with non-technical
| people, they'd actually negotiate at the business requirement
| level: "if we take out features B and C, how much would that
| reduce the cost?"
|
| That to me seems like a far more reasonable negotiation
| strategy.
|
| To tell someone how they should be doing their job, I find, is
| disrespectful.
|
| But I agree, putting someone more emotionally capable between
| the team and the customer is probably the best way forward
| there.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| > To tell someone how they should be doing their job, I find,
| is disrespectful.
|
| You are taking things too personally here. As a consultant I
| have been working fairly regularly in the past few years on
| large software projects for some of my customers. That has
| involved being in charge of formally setting business
| requirements and negotiating price and schedule for scope
| modifications with their providers.
|
| I will systematically challenge any provider planning for a
| few reasons:
|
| - If they fold straight away, it's a free win for me and I
| have children to feed.
|
| - I will myself pad a planning when I am in the reverse
| position to give me leeway in negotiation and I don't want to
| leave all of that on the table.
|
| - Keeping a moderate amount of pressure on my providers will
| help me in futur negotiations. I want them to leave the table
| feeling I made some concessions.
|
| - Having my providers be late is extremely advantageous for
| me. On large projects it's a quasi-certainty that at some
| point they are going to complain about scope creeps or delays
| in writing the specs and ask for money. If they delivered
| late, I have something to push back with especially if
| penalties are involved.
|
| - I am also systematically negotiating hard with companies
| which did themselves do it. If finding a price with your
| company was a pain, I am likely to retaliate on scope and
| schedule.
|
| If you are strictly working on the technical side, you are
| probably not privy to most that. A significant part of what's
| happening might not even be related to you or the quality of
| your estimation at all.
| njacobs5074 wrote:
| First of all, that sounds like a shit situation.
|
| If you think it'll be valuable, you could ask them why it's
| important that you hit their date. Most likely they're being
| pressured by someone else.
|
| But at the end of the day, you own the delivery of the product.
| Smile, nod, and get back to delivery.
|
| (And yes, it's easier to write that then to do it)
| Arubis wrote:
| - Call it a forecast, not an estimate.
|
| - Supply confidence intervals. ("50% likely it'll be done by date
| X, 90% likely by date Y.") Estigator.com is great for helping
| construct and illustrate these.
|
| - Demonstrate understanding of client/customer/manager
| priorities, frustrations, and necessary tradeoffs: show
| compassion and supply suggestions for where scope can be narrowed
| if needed.
| uptime wrote:
| This is great. We used to do this and offer to adjust later
| phases if needed. Rewards the customer for meeting their
| deliverables and being clear as well.
| fardo wrote:
| > Call it a forecast, not an estimate
|
| Can you explain why? At least for predicting expected task
| finish times, I feel like people use them interchangeably.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| In business terms...
|
| "Forecast" is an expected date that may change due to
| circumstances.
|
| "Estimate" is how long something will take, regardless of
| circumstances.
| Arubis wrote:
| I endorse this answer; it's more concise than I would have
| given.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| I guess "forecast" is more explicit about the fact you're
| trying to guess what will happen in the future, so it's
| clearer that you can't be totally confident about when you'll
| finish.
|
| If you say "I estimate 2 weeks", then the word "estimate" is
| often taken to mean "2 weeks, plus or minus 10%" (or some
| other fixed bound), when what you probably actually mean is
| "between 1 week and 6 months, but _probably_ around 2 weeks
| ".
| [deleted]
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Demonstrate understanding of client/customer/manager
| priorities, frustrations, and necessary tradeoffs: show
| compassion and supply suggestions for where scope can be
| narrowed if needed.
|
| I think this is huge. I've found that if you ask if they need
| to cut things from the scope to hit a deadline, and tell them
| you'll work with them to get a scope that is reasonable by the
| time they selected, it works wonders. Sometimes it turns out
| they really need a small thing to get their next project out,
| but they are asking for far too much.
| astroalex wrote:
| I've wanted something like Estigator for a long time!
| Unfortunately, it seems to be broken -- it's not possible to
| add a specific type of estimate.
| Arubis wrote:
| Hm; how so? The interface is a little clunky; the + button at
| the bottom of the estimate component list adds three items,
| one of each type, and then I remove the ones I didn't mean.
|
| There may be better tools out there, and I'd be happy to hear
| about them; this is the one I recommend only because I don't
| know of simple alternatives.
| kqr wrote:
| Also worth trying getguesstimate.com. Unfortunately
| development on it is abandoned, as far as I know.
|
| I made my own text-based tool for this at one point, but I
| lost it when I switched jobs.
|
| I would like to recreate it except more generally useful. I
| would also like to make it compatible with the SIPMath
| standard (which are an open standard for conveying empirical
| distributions, e.g. as business-relevant inputs to
| estimations, or the outcomes of them.)
| mkeedlinger wrote:
| Wow, Estigator.com seems really cool! I wish it was a bit more
| flexible when editing though, even just playing around with it
| was a tad cumbersome.
| joncp wrote:
| I provide:
|
| * Known tasks and how long each will take (with error bars),
|
| * An overview of known unknowns, how they might impact the
| project, and what research would bring them into focus,
|
| * Then I bring up the dreaded unknown unknowns.
|
| With reasonable leadership that usually leads to good discussions
| about reining in the scope.
| wetpaws wrote:
| There is only one solution to it and it is called "cutting the
| scope". Learn them and use them in any discussion involving
| managers and PMs. "We will deliver X by Y if we cut A,B and C".
| OrangeMonkey wrote:
| Rule 1 - Keep your code quality up enough to manage the level of
| realiability that the business demands and needs.
|
| Rule 2 - When questioned on estimates, say "The business needs
| XXX level of reliability and we have built our software and
| release practice up to the level we can deliver on that. The
| estimate takes into account this process, qa, defect cycles, and
| release constraints." and do not deviate from it.
|
| Unless Rule 3 - Deviate the heck out of it if your estimates
| plainly suck. :)
| kqr wrote:
| You can calibrate your estimations skills. This means that if you
| say, "there's a 50 % chance it is done before this day", 20
| times, then in 10 of them it is done by that day, and in 10 of
| them it gets done later than that day.
|
| Perhaps more usefully, it also means that if you say "there's a
| 90 % chance it is done before this day" then 18 times out of 20
| will it be done by that day, and only around two times will it be
| late.
|
| I have calibrated my estimation skill, so whenever someone
| challenges my estimation, I urge them to keep score and find out
| that I'm right just as often as I claim to be.
|
| (If I'm particularly bold, I suggest a bet. I'm confident enough
| to make money on it in the long run.)
|
| However, usually it doesn't get that far. Once I start explaining
| that it's a probabilistic measure of high certainty customers and
| managers back off.
|
| ----
|
| Some people want to be reassured that I don't _plan_ on taking as
| long as my 90 % estimation suggests, so then I give them
| something like a 10 %--90 % span and say, "it's unlikely to be
| done before this day, but also unlikely to be later than this.
| This interval is wide today because there are many uncertainties
| for me. As I learn more about the problem, this interval will
| narrow."
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| In some implementations of Agile this is supposed to be the
| point of the team velocity. Not that you make the engineers
| change the way they feel about tasks, but instead discover the
| hidden rate of delivery.
| kqr wrote:
| That's also a way to do it! I prefer making it explicit at
| the lowest level -- it's nice to be able to ask someone for a
| probability and know that it's accurate. It also helps them
| grow as people and professionals.
| orangesite wrote:
| "Our estimates are based on many interdependent factors. If you'd
| like to book an hour slot (paid) with one of our consultants they
| would be happy to go over the details with you."
| lacker wrote:
| If you get this pushback from a few of your customers, you should
| probably just politely explain the reasoning behind your time
| estimates.
|
| If you get this pushback from most of your customers, that means
| your team is widely perceived as underperforming. If you're the
| manager or a leader on the team, you should do something about
| this.
|
| First, you have to be honest with yourself. Maybe your team is
| underperforming because of the people on the team. Maybe some of
| the engineers on the team are underperforming, because they
| aren't able to meet the standards of your organization, and they
| should be managed out.
|
| There are a couple other possibilities. Your team could be
| underperforming because it lacks some underlying infrastructure.
| For example, minor changes might take too long because the test
| infrastructure is too slow. You might be dependent on some other
| team which is too slow. You might really need to invest some
| effort in improving underlying automation. The right course of
| action depends on the underlying facts, but basically, maybe
| there is some medium-term plan that can improve this, and you
| should figure out how to do it.
|
| The final possibility is that there's nothing you can do except
| communicate better that people should lower their expectations of
| your team. Just mentally prepare yourself to have a lot of this
| sort of conversation forever.
| uptime wrote:
| Sounds like you know what it will take, but that many of the
| tasks involve iteration or admin stuff that you feel embarrassed
| to put a price on. So you would rather not talk about those
| things. I think the answer is to practice feeling for yourself
| that all of the time is well spent.
|
| A big problem can be that the customer wants you to treat some
| tasks as worthless or free (or your problem as overhead), because
| they might be treated that way internally. You will not have a
| good time with that, so might as well stick to your guns.
|
| The other problem is that often the customer is doing this
| because it has worked in the past. You can say that while others
| have salespeople that treat estimates as haggling - leaving
| others to do the work, you prefer to offer estimates based on
| project success not bonus money.
|
| In both cases you are going to want to get comfortable defending
| your practices. You can ask satisfied customers what they liked
| about working with you and might get your talking points!
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Highlight:
|
| * Effort vs duration
|
| * Best case vs worst case
|
| * Levels of certainty
|
| * Risks and how you account for them in estimate / plan to
| mitigate them
|
| Etc
| EddieDante wrote:
| I just give them my third-best murderous glare and ask them, "You
| want me to test this, right?"
| timdellinger wrote:
| Personally, I don't find this disrespectful at all. It's good for
| stakeholders to understand what you're doing, why you're doing it
| that way, and what the alternatives are.
| M4R5H4LL wrote:
| There are a few things you can do to improve the conversation and
| relationship:
|
| - Get support from top management on the client-side. Provide
| quality metrics quarterly (number of bugs reported, releases,
| etc.) and show positive trends.
|
| - Iterate faster - like every week, and show what has been
| delivered. Prioritize what has actual value for your clients.,
| and let them provide feedback.
|
| - Make your clients have skin in the game. The problem with folks
| challenging estimates is that they are not involved in the
| process, e.g., they are not contributing to the product. Without
| being involved, they can only provide feedback such as "I don't
| understand...". It would help if you found a way of having them
| contribute to the product, and the conversation will change from
| estimates to the product's actual value. Ask them to review
| features, prioritize, read release notes, suggest improvements,
| share their experience with other clients, etc. If you have ways
| to open your product and processes, it should help.
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