Why Development Teams Struggle to Deliver on Time, on Budget, or at All
The reason that planning software development is bullshit is that you simply cannot know all the little details because in software development you're always doing something you've never done before (because if you did you could just copy-paste your previous work).To use the 'going to the supermarket for milk' example. I could make a fairly accurate estimate for that because I've gone to the supermarket hundreds of times. I know all the different things that can go wrong and account for them, because I've encountered them before. The elderly person who wants to pay cash and has a bag full of coins. The guy who finds a 10 cent discrepancy on his €92,30 receipt and has to argue for 5 minutes with the cashier (while the row behind him keeps growing). etc. etc.Now imagine that today is your first time going to a supermarket. In fact, before today you had never heard of the concept of supermarkets, or milk for that matter. How good will your estimate be ?The only time you can make a decent estimate is after you've finished. Or to put it differently: making an accurate estimate is possible, if you're going to accept that making the estimate is going to take a long time, but I can't tell you how long.Development time estimation, and every methodology that attempts it (I'm looking at you, Scrum), are little more than desperate attempts by managers to feel in control and relevant.