[soonnow]

> Rather than giving some finger in the air estimate, you need to explain that until the precise requirements are known, solution devised, and backlog estimated, you can't give a precise estimate

You make a lot of good points but I disagree with this one. I understand the need for business to know how much a project will cost, but I don't think there is any other way than finger in the air. Or rather looking at a project of similar scope and going from there.

The core of agile, for businesses, in my opinion is to deliver business value in the shortest amount of time. Changing requirements are not a bug but a feature of Agile. But you can't estimate for the unknown.

Let's say you are building an app for a bank that allows customers to leave comments on merchants as an option, three menus down. Turns out your customers love that feature and the bank decides to promote that feature.

This business agility is at the core of digital transformation and it should not be discussed away as not being part of the original requirements. Rather it should be embraced.

But you can't estimate the unknown. And I have in my life never seen a project that didn't have wild changes in requirements along the way.

So in my opinion you may as well throw out a number based on experience. Deep estimation based on Excel sheets and task completion times are not gonna improve on the result.