There is a popular Agile and No Estimates phrase...
It is by doing the work we discover the work we must do.
This of course ignores the notion of engineering or designing a solution to the needed Capabilities of the customer, BEFORE starting coding. It is certainly the case that some aspects of the software solution can only be confirmed when the working software is available for use. But like all good platitudes in the agile community, there is no domain or context as to where this phrase is applicable. Where can coding start before there is some sort of framework for how the needed capabilities will be delivered?
- Shall we just start coding and see what comes out?
- How about just buying a COTS product a start installing it to see if it is going the meet our needs?
This sounds not only näive, but sounds like we're wandering around looking for a solution without any definition of what the problem is. When that is the approach, when the solution appears it may not be recognized as the solution. Agile is certainly the basis of dealing with emerging requirements. But all good agile processes have some sense of what the customer is looking for.
This understanding of what capabilities the customer needs starts with a Product Roadmap. The Product Roadmap is a plan that matches short-term and long-term business goals with specific technology solutions to help meet those goals.
A Plan is a Strategy for success. All strategies have a hypothesis. A Hypothesis need to be tested. This is what working software does. It tests the hypothesis of the Strategy described in the Product Roadmap.
So if you have to do the work to discover what work must be done, you've got an Open Loop control system. To close the loop this emergent work needs to have a target to steer toward. With this target the working software can be compared to the desired working software. The variance between the two used to take corrective actions to steer toward the desired goals.
And of course, since the steering target (goal) and the path to this goal are both random variables - estimates will be needed to close the loop of the control processes used to reach the desired outcomes that meet the Capabilities requested by the customer.
