[supratims]

We work in smaller teams in a scrum like environment. Our tasks are small ranging from 2-7 days mostly. To make it easier for us developers to communicate estimations higher up, we do following :

* Split work as small as possible, and atomic so that aborting/undoing is possible if required. Like all teams we do throw away a lot of stuff. * If a task contains 5 bullets (best case), we would only give an estimate for the bullets that we know for sure can be done without further dependencies and complications. We refrain from providing an overall estimate in such cases. * We often proceed with starting a task, and as the task progresses and more clarity emerges, we revise the estimate. Importantly we are encouraged to raise flags as early as possible. * We have dev servers that we spin out frequently to stage things that are in progress to test. They may break but give us early feedback which is crucial. Sometimes helps to stop a task earlier rather than later.

Still not a perfect system, but works for us without causing too much friction.