The introduction to the #NoEstimates paradigm started with
This statement is an ontological fallacy. An Ontological Fallacy is a statement of being or existing with an a priori theory about the organization of some paradigm. There is no principle on which to base the statement ...
We can make decisions in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision on our probability of success
is an example of an Ontological Fallacy. The second order fallacy is that #NoEstimates is a hashtag to explore alternatives to estimates since only those engaging in this discussion are supporters of the fallacy that decisions CAN be made without estimates. Any criticism of the NO Estimates statement is met with being blocked from the discussion.
The approach of the No Estimates advocates suggest that estimates are of no value, in fact, are a waste. There's a nice quote from Rust Cohle in the Indie Underground film True Detective
Detective Rust Cohle:
The ontological fallacy of expecting a light at the end of the tunnel (we can decide without estimates), well, that's what the preacher sells, same as a shrink. See, the preacher, he encourages your capacity for illusion. Then he tells you it's a f***ing virtue. Always a buck to be had doing that, and it's such a desperate sense of entitlement, isn't it?
The illusion here is that decisions Can be made in the presence of uncertainty without estimating. This conjecture violates several principles:
- Managerial Finance - those accountable for the firms money have a fiduciary need to know - at some level of confidence, accuracy, and precision - how much something will cost, when that something will be delivered so it can be exchanged for revenue, and the confidence that, that something, will possess the needed capabilities the potential customers are willing to pay for. Since all these attributes operate in the presence of uncertainties, estimates are needed to answer those questions.
- Microeconomics of Software Development - Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individuals and their decision making on the allocation of limited resources. It's the scarcity of resources that is the basis of Microeconomics. Software development operates in the presence of scarce resources. MicroEconomics is closer to what we need to make decisions in the presence of uncertainty. Software economics is a subset of Engineering Economics. A key aspect of all Microeconomics applied to engineering problems is the application of Statistical Decisions Theory - making decisions in the presence of uncertainty.
- Statistical Decision Theory - is about making choices, identifying values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision. In Statistical Decision Theory, the underlying statistical processes and the resulting Probabilistic outcomes require us to Estimate in the presence of uncertainty.
In the paper "Software Economics: Status and Prospects," Information and Software Technology 41 (1999) 937–946, is an applicable quote:
Software is valuable when it produces information in a manner that enables people and systems to meet their objectives more effectively. Software engineering techniques have value when they enable software developers to build more valuable software. Software economics is the sub-field of software engineering that seeks improvements which enable software engineers to reason more effectively about important economic aspects of software development, including cost, benefit, risk, opportunity, uncertainty, incomplete knowledge and the value of additional information, implications of competition, and so forth.
One cause of inefficiency is the inadequacy of economic information available to support decision making. In the absence of reasonable cost estimates, for example, projects are at risk. Improving our basic understanding of software economics and the abilities of organizations to model and analyze economic aspects, can help to make them significantly more productive.
As consumers of our customer's money in exchange for producing business value, operating in the presence of uncertainties that create risk to the success of our projects or products, the need to estimate is fundamental to making decisions.
This principle is immutable and can only be willfully ignored
