You need consensus, sure. You don't time estimates from engineering estimates for it, and even if you did, badgering engineers to make their numbers smaller wouldn't make getting consensus any easier.
You do need estimates to unlock capital, plan budgets, plan for staffing. And badgering engineers to make their numbers smaller is often the result of engineers bullshitting their numbers, as I mentioned before. Engineering departments aren’t free from the same errors or fallacies or biases or mistakes that other humans make.
> You do need estimates to unlock capital, plan budgets, plan for staffing.
You might need some amount of estimation. You don't need a full schedule of every task, and producing one just in case is immensely wasteful. In my experience engineers are very happy to help answer questions like "should we be hiring more people for this project" when there is a real need and businesspeople trust enough to share that context.
> badgering engineers to make their numbers smaller is often the result of engineers bullshitting their numbers, as I mentioned before
Pretty sure the causation goes in the opposite direction. Most engineers are honest to a fault; the ones who pad their estimates are the ones who've spent too long working with crappy business people who do things like cutting time off estimates.
This is not something I'd bet millions of my own or investor's money on. The sooner engineers realize this – that their honesty simply isn't germane to the discussion at hand – the sooner this endless argument ends.
There's plenty of grown-up engineers who get this by the way.
> The sooner engineers realize this – that their honesty simply isn't germane to the discussion at hand – the sooner this endless argument ends.
Yeah, no. The sooner business people realise that honesty matters and deceit is deceit no matter how much sophistry you surround it with, the sooner the argument ends. There are plenty of grown-up businesspeople who get this.
