cumulativehypotheses

Wrong Theorem

We’ll see on the video, I guess, but I think I said “Mean Value” when I should have said “Central Limit”. My mistake. It had been a long day, and they were handing out beer.

On the β-distribution

If you are going to try that sort of Monte Carlo estimation for yourself you don’t need to wrestle with the full-blown β-distribution, which is a bit of a beast. You can approximate it well enough using a triangular distribution. The base of the triangle is the closed interval—time, money, whatever, I’ll talk about time—between, as Dan North suggested, that time which if the work took less than that you’d be very, very surprised and that time which if the work took much longer you’d be very, very embarrassed. Somewhere in that interval—and very rarely in the middle—is the time that you think it’s most likely for the work to take^* and the apex of the triangle lies above that point. The altitude of the apex must be such that the area of the triangle is 1.

Have fun!

Getting to not having to do any of that

Being asked for a estimate is, it’s true, a sign that your interrogator doesn’t trust you.

Usually this is not because they are monsters who relax every evening with a well-thumbed copy of The 48 Laws of Power and a small glass of chilled kitten’s tears. Usually it’s because, firstly: they have suffered a long history of paying people to develop software for them and not getting much back in return, and secondly: they don’t know you from Adam or Eve.

In a better world, they would trust you, because your heart is pure and your intentions good and wouldn’t if be great if we could all just get along? And it would.

Until that world arrives we will have to deal with suspicious, hard-bitten CFOs who have a keen understanding of their fiduciary duty. They—or their subordinates—will ask you for an estimate. Some of them will want then to interpret your estimate as a commitment, perhaps with contractual remedies for failure to meet same, and so hold your feet to the fire to deliver exactly against those estimates. I strongly recommend not doing business with the ones that cleave tightly to such a position. They are setting up themselves, and you, for failure.

But many will be amenable to understanding that, as McConnell says, the point of estimation is not to predict outcomes but to see if you are in with a chance of managing your way to success.

How to break the cycle?

Deliver value. Early, often, reliably. Very early, very often.

With contemporary engineering practices and tooling this can now often be done very quickly. Even in those “heavily regulated” environments. When you have—and maintain—a reputation for delivering value then your conversations with the people who’re paying you to do that change dramatically. From: “how much will X cost?” To: “how much do I need to pay to have you keep on doing J, P, R, S, Q…?” That’s much more agreeable for all concerned.

Stepping back

YMMV, but I’ve found, while doing and managing software development work in and for VC funded local startups, publicly traded global blue-chips, privately owned product companies, government departments and many other scenarios, on  four continents, that when something about the scenario says “new”, whether it’s that you are a new supplier, or they are a new CFO, or whatever, then requests for estimates—maybe with some story about “just for budgetary purposes” attached—will come; but once a reputation for reliable delivery of value is established they fade away, until something changes that takes us back to “new”.

It would be nice if we didn’t have to erect this infrastructure of estimation every now and again, and you can if you wish refuse to work under such terms—you may then find work unpleasantly hard to come by—or you can invest in re-educating people not to ask those questions—but the first rule of consultancy is not to solve a problem you aren’t being paid to solve—or you can roll with it, demonstrate the simple lack of necessity of estimation in an effective organization and wait for the next cycle which often will be less severe than the previous one. And so on.

Good luck!

* Whenever you are asked for an estimate, for anything, you should reply with at least these three numbers—or their equivalent—and if that shape, never mind the content, of answer is not acceptable then you have discovered that you were not being asked for an estimate.