I presented at Keep Austin Agile 2016, on Thursday, May 26 on Estimating in an Agile context.

Agile Manifesto Values and Principles do not, not even once, mention “estimates” any where. Yet rapid adoption of estimation techniques labeled as “Agile Estimation” techniques puzzle me. In my experience as practitioner, advisor and coach: I have experienced very limited benefits from estimating and often find that estimates create more harm than good. There are however legitimate business concerns that need active management. Estimates hinder real business agility by servicing temporary comfort through plausible but highly improbable plans.

I started from two things that are certain about estimates: 1) estimates are always wrong and 2) you will spend more time estimating that you should have otherwise used to do the work instead.

You can watch the video on YouTube or directly here.