

The Scotty Effect - galaktor
http://www.galaktor.net

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jonnathanson
Perhaps the biggest lesson here: never give someone a gut-level estimate of
_anything_. The challenge is that a lot of clients/bosses/whatever will press
you for one. Some people just need to hear a spot-estimate in order to feel
comfortable.

In those cases, I've found a fairly effective verbal counter. It goes
something like this: "Listen, Bob [assuming the client's name is Bob]. I don't
want to mislead you here. I'd rather work up a proper estimate than throw out
some number on the spot that might be incorrect. I want to do this the right
way, for your benefit and mine."

If Bob presses you further, respond with "I've worked on similar projects in
the past. Some have taken 2 days, and some have taken 10 days. It really
depends on X, Y, and Z. I want to take a proper accounting of X, Y, and Z in
this case, so that I'm not misleading you up front."

If pressed further: "Bob, obviously time is of the essence for you and for
this project. I understand that, and I will do everything I can to ensure that
I complete the project as quickly as possible. In the end, this will be much
quicker if we get it right the first time. Give me a little bit of time to do
some planning, and it'll save us a lot of time in the long run."

All of this is true, of course. It's better to aim twice and shoot once, as
the saying goes. However, there will be clients or bosses who just won't
accept this sort of conversation up front. It'll piss them off. So be it. FAR
better to have a little bit of confrontation at the outset than a lot of
confrontation later on (i.e., if you toss out a gut estimate and then have to
crawl back and amend or delay it).

~~~
alex_c
Addendum: If you absolutely HAVE to give a gut-level estimate, multiply your
gut level estimate by 4 or 5 before you let it escape your mouth.

~~~
gaius
I roll a D12 then pick the units (hours/days/weeks) as appropriate.

~~~
gujk
"Awesome. We'll have that Perl-> Rails port with MySQL -> Cassandra conversion
and 1 million paid accounts migrated in at most 12 weeks, ready to handle 5
million new accounts the day of our grand re-launch? Great! Then I don't have
to worry about finding a SDET or QAE or Datacenter admin to help parallelize
the work and hit our release date. Marketing has the press conferencne all
planned, we just needed the word from you before we filled in the
Octo..Nove..Decem..January 24 launch date! Thanks!"

~~~
gaius
Or months ;-)

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joezydeco
The lesson here, once again, is that _estimates are not commitments_.

[http://cwd.dhemery.com/2003/08/estimates_are_not_commitments...](http://cwd.dhemery.com/2003/08/estimates_are_not_commitments/)

"If you ask Fred, “When will you be done?” have you asked for an estimate or a
commitment? What does Fred think you asked for? If Fred says, “Two weeks from
today,” has he given an estimate or a commitment? What might happen if you
want a commitment and Fred thinks you want an estimate? What might happen if
you want an estimate and Fred thinks you want a commitment? How could you make
it crystal clear whether you’re asking for an estimate or for a commitment?
How could you make it crystal clear whether Fred is giving an estimate or a
commitment?"

~~~
galaktor
I agree. That is also why some processes (i.e. Scrum) force you to make an
explicit distinction between "estimations" and "commitments" (and that still
does not keep some people from forgetting the difference).

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bgruber
this post completely ignores the secret scotty divulged to Geordi on TNG: he
always told kirk things would take twice as long as they really would. "How
else will they think you're a miracle worker?"

~~~
galaktor
Ha, good catch. But let's not get started on inconsistencies in the Star Trek
universe :-)

Edit: I meant to add that Scotty obviously was a genius in many ways.

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fr0sty
I was expecting this "Scotty Effect":

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Look, Mr. Scott, I'd love to explain everything
to you, but the Captain wants this spectrographic analysis done by 1300 hours.

Scotty: Do you mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children.
They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is
to give them only what they need, not what they want.

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Yeah, well, I told the Captain I'd have this
analysis done in an hour.

Scotty: How long will it really take? Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: An hour!

Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would _really_ take, did ya?

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.

Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of
you as a miracle worker.

------
galaktor
FYI I updated the post in response to the often quoted scene from TNG's
"Relics" where Scotty tells Geordi he should always exaggerate his
estimations.

