The selective pressures of your model reward dishonesty (under promise over deliver / make estimates as high as possible to mitigate downside and reduce pressure). Why is that making your team better?
If my estimates are padded to the point where I always complete what I commit to and my boss is happy with my output, what’s the problem? My boss gets value from being able to accurately convey estimates to clients, the client 9/10 gets the work done on time or maybe even gets a couple extra features completed in the same timeline, and I as the engineer, have a relaxed work environment, free of the stress of cramming every story point possible into 40 hours a week.
This might be okay in isolation, but eventually as the entire team of engineers start to underdeliver, the team and company does get affected in terms of feature rollouts / velocity, and it's difficult to recover from it. People won't want to suddenly correct / do more work even if it's crucial, and they can point to their previous underestimated commitments and say that is a full week's worth of work. YMMV as with anything, but not knowing a team's true velocity does affect planning and sales.
yurishimo|3 years ago
If my estimates are padded to the point where I always complete what I commit to and my boss is happy with my output, what’s the problem? My boss gets value from being able to accurately convey estimates to clients, the client 9/10 gets the work done on time or maybe even gets a couple extra features completed in the same timeline, and I as the engineer, have a relaxed work environment, free of the stress of cramming every story point possible into 40 hours a week.
Seems like a win win win to me.
sahila|3 years ago