And no doubt when you give them an "estimate" and go over it, it suddenly wasnt an estimate but a deadline! ( im guessing )
Project managers
- Thread starter nero120
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And no doubt when you give them an "estimate" and go over it, it suddenly wasnt an estimate but a deadline! ( im guessing )
Exactly. The point is that they want to hear what they want to hear, say anything else and they get all funny, because they can't come out and say "get it done sooner, my charts won't look right with your estimates because I didn't factor the task in correctly or allow time for unpredicted events!".
I'm not a PM, I'm just capable of looking at a task and giving a sensible estimate of how long it will take. I'm also lucky enough to have worked with project managers who don't treat this estimate as cast iron allthough I do like to deliver on time and budget. I generally find that those who bitch and moan most about PM's are those that are incapable of managing their work properly and therefore actually really need the PM in the first place.
The guy accepted this, and therefore asked you to review the project and required work in order to be able to give a more informed estimate. Why the issue with this? That's standard practice the world over no matter what kind of manager you are dealing with.
Why are you unable perform a simple task like estimate how long a required item of work will take anyway? Extremely inexperienced, or just a bit ****?
Are you blind? I gave an estimate, which obviously wasn't what the PM wanted. So they ask me to go away and look into it to give them another one.
Bear in mind we are not talking about a week or more's worth of work, it's a few days. It is impossible to be more precise unless you DO THE BLOODY task and them tell them how long it took. I am not in a position to make a more informed estimate as I am not a developer on that project.
Jesus, what is so difficult to grasp here? Any decent PM here would realise that you can't bring a developer onto the team and expect cast iron predictions from them, you can try but be it on your head if things turn out differently.
Exactly what I always do. If BY GODS GRACE I doget a decent PM, I'll obviously explain in more detail how my estimate is formed and how decent an estimate it is, but this usually just confuses bad PMs, they want a number, and the specific number that they are thinking of, and nothing else.
... and one who got out of the wrong side of bed this morning.
I'll concede this point and this point alone!
Then there's also the point where moaning about the task exceeds the time taken to conduct the task itself.