Comment by paulddraper
14 days ago
You wouldn’t put up with this drama from any other professional, I don’t know why I’d take it from a SWE.
Timelines can be estimated approximately.
I’ve never had a construction project finish exactly on time, but that doesn’t mean estimates are unwise.
I think we should not compare apples to oranges here.
A construction project is not an IT project.
In a construction project, many things can be easily estimated. I know how much concrete, steel, and other materials I need. I can estimate how long it will take to get them delivered. I can estimate how long it will take to build this one specific part. Sure, there are unknowns, but they are usually (not always) due to human error, price changes, unreliable partners, or weather conditions. That's nothing you can predict upfront (maybe except weather, to a degree), but those factors usually blow up construction projects. Not the fact that it suddenly took you three times as long to build this wall because you had to do it completely differently than before, and couldn't have known that.
An IT project is totally different. As the article states (and I agree), most of the work happens in terra incognito. I cannot reliably estimate what I don't know. Sure, there are situations where I can reliably estimate my work, but more often than not, I can't. Especially when the estimates go into weeks or months. There is no way to predict anything reliably for such a period of time, IMO.