There is a nice post from Trent Hone on No Estimates. This triggered some more ideas about why we estimates, what the root cause of the problem #NoEstimates is trying to solve and a summary of the problem
A Few Comments
All project work is probabilistic, driven by the underlying statistical uncertainties. These uncertainties are of two types - reducible and irreducible. Reducible uncertainty is driven by the lack of information. This information can be increased with direct work. We can "buy down" the uncertainty, with testing, alternative designs, redundancy. Reducible uncertainty is "event based." Your power outage for example. DDay being pushed one day by weather.
Irreducible uncertainty is just "part of the environment." It's the natural varaibility embedded in all project work. The "vibrations" of all the variables. This is handled by Margin. Schedule margin, cost margin, technical margin.
Here's an approach to "managing in the presence of uncertainty"
For my experience in Software Intensive Systems in a variety of domains (ERP, Realtime embedded systems, defense, space, nuclear power, pulp and paper, New Drug Development, heavy manufacturing, and more) #NE is a reaction to Bad Management. This inverts the Cause and Effect model of Root Cause Analysis. The conjecture that "estimates are the smell of dysfunction" without stating the dysfunction, the corrective action for that dysfunction, applying that corrective action, then reassessing the conjecture is a hollow statement. So the entire notion of #NE is a house built on sand.
Lastly the Microeconomics of decision making in SWDev in the presence of uncertainty means estimating is needed to "decide" between alternatives - opportunity costs. This paradigm is the basis of any non-trivial business governance process
No Estimates is a solution looking for a problem to solve.
