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We all have been there (spaffel.social)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] 24 points 2 years ago (3 children)

It's an attempt to get a handle on things and trying to avoid situations such as:

"Oh, I was struck on that point for the last 3 months. I reinvented the wheel 2 times and now it works."

"And now we're 3 months behind schedule. Why didn't you ask anybody?"

"Yeah, I didn't want to bother anyone. But I did put in on the timesheets."

"It says 'working on project'."

And that's how regular project update meetings get scheduled, and a bunch of messages asking for updates.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Well, at least they can see the baby steps that way I guess.

    But I've always wondered if I'm actually terrible at my job or if PMPs, Scrum Masters, Management, etc, can't actually fathom that I have absolutely no way to roughly estimate how long something can possibly take that ive never done before, and I have no evidence someone else has done it before.

    When I was younger I got so frustrated with it I asked if anyone else on the team wanted to do it instead, and there was a resounding no, but it's feasible so you should keep at it. And eventually I get it working but the whole time it's demoralizing with the amount of "why are you not done?"

    And now I just give the exact details that goes straight over everyone's heads anyway and ask if they need me to switch my priorities.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Well, often they know it´s hard to estimate, but the entire corporate system is built around having things done by a certain date, your time costs money and payments are usually linked to those dates. They don´t really have a choice but to make a planning based on the estimates you give and monitor the progress so they can give the proper level of panic to their bosses. Of course, software has always been a disaster with estimates and attempts to tame the chaos haven´t been that successful.

    I usually make a ridiculously detailed list of all tasks. ¨Add button A on screen. Discuss details: 2 hours. Interface work: 0.5 hour. Code work: 2 hours. Database work: 2 hours. Testing: 2 hours. FAT: 2 hours. Changes after FAT: 1 hour. SAT: 2 hour. Test script: 1 hour. Update documentation: 2 hours. Add button B ... ¨ Put it all in an excel sheet and summarize. Most PMs don´t even want to start arguing a list like that, and it seems to make a reasonably good estimate for me.

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