Summary of No Estimates Posts

After a contentious exchange on twitter about a contentious topic of managing complex adaptive systems - the other side of the exchange doesn't actually MANAGE Complex Systems - he just talks about non-actionable outcomes aspect of his theory of how they are structured. The conversation turned to No Estimates and his engagement with some NE advocates in his home country where he said No Estimates people have such interesting but context-specific ideas 

Really, they have interesting but - in the context where no one cares how much it will cost, when you'll be done and what you'll get after spending other people's time and money

You cannot run a credible business of even your own household without knowing your cost basis for its operations and the demand for future expenditures. In the presence of uncertainties in the business or your house on the cost basis and the value produced by those expenditures (funds not budget), you're going to have to make estimates.
To say otherwise means you're operating in a Open Loop system. Open Loop systems have a nasty tendency to crash and burn.

Here's my response to the continued nonsense of No Estimates:

Let's start with the first statement of the utter nonsense of No Estimates. This list is a summary of blog posts on the topic, all of which can be found here

• I Smell Dysfunction - estimates are the smell of Dysfunction was Woody Zuill's original statement in support of No Estimates. It's utter nonsense from a person willfully ignorant of how business works.

Then let's look at enough commentary, research, and resources to put a stake at the heart of No Estimates. But it turns out that hasn't happened and the nonsense continues.

• #NoEstimates is Open Loop Control - the claim by No Estimates advocates is by NOT estimating you can show up on time, on budget, with the needed capabilities. That can't happen unless you have a closed loop control system with a target to steer toward, assessment of progress to that target, and corrective actions to stay on target. In the presence of uncertainty, this requires making estimates.
• Quote of the Day - all project work takes place in the presence of uncertainty. To successfully manage a project in this uncertainty we need to make estimates of all the variables of the project -cost, schedule, technical performance. Here's some quotes from thought leaders on why we need to do this.
• Quote of the Day - another example of people fixing their minds on a concept without testing the credibility of that concept.
• Another Fallacy of the Week - #NoEstimates - the book How to Lie With Statistics is mandatory in our domain of Complex Software Intensive System of Systems. Much of the supposed statistics used by No Estimates advocates to show something works or doesn't work when NO estimating is a fallacy.
• What Do We Mean By Risk and Uncertainty? - all projects operate in the presence of uncertainty. To make credible decisions, while spending other people's money in this uncertainty, we need to make estimates of the effectiveness of those decisions.
• The Saga Continues - A well known advocate of No Estimates, in fact No Anything, needed a response to his nonsense.
• Return of the Swamp Monster - the Standish report has long been debunked for all the reasons listed here. No Estimates advocates use the Standish report as an example of why estimates don't work. They fail to understand the concept of Root Cause Analysis and find the reason why projects fail before attributing that failure to making estimates. And then conjecture falsely that NOT estimating will have fixed those failures.
• Guide to Stopping #NoEstimates Fallacies - here's some guidelines for stopping the nonsense of No Estimates
• Increasing the Probability of Project Success - since all projects operate in the presence of uncertainty, project success is only probabilistic, not certain. No Estimates advocates claim projects can successfully deliver on time, every time by NOT Estimating. Here's how to debunk that nonsense idea.
• Quote of the Day - No Estimates is my favorite example of the Dunning Kruger effect 
• You Can Not "Control" Projects - #NoEstimates are right you cannot control projects. But they're right for the wrong reason.
• Predicting the Unpredictable (Book Review) - While there are many voices in the software development estimating world, this one is credible. But once reading the book, I'm now convinced even those credible voices in the past have little or any understanding of how to make estimates of software development in the presence of uncertainty.
• The Aha! of the Day - when you hear Agile Doesn't Scale, it's right along the fallacy that we can't estimate in Agile.
• Quote of the Day - Running a business requires making estimates.
• Quote of the Day - even Emerson knew we had to make decisions based on principles.
• Quote of the Day - we must start with principles for any practices or processes to have the desired effect on the outcome of our work.
• Cost and Schedule Management for Software Development - there's a popular notion in the agile community - we focus on Value and don't need to worry about Cost
• Why Johnny Can't Do The Math - a #NoEstimate advocate claims estimates are non-ergodic . This is a category error of the first order
• Quote of the Day - Puffery of #NoEstimates advocates and their supporters
• Making Decisions in the Presence of Uncertainty - Making decisions is part of spending other people's money. It's part of Risk Management. It's part of our everyday lives.
• Why Johnny Can't Do The Math? - the principles of business require we make estimates in order to make credible decisions
• #NoEstimates in Six Boxes - a twitter post suggested #Noestimates can be described in six boxes.
• The Ontological Fallacy of No Estimates - read the original post of #Noestimates to see it says NE is a hashtag for the topic of exploring alternatives to estimates for making decisions in software development
• Why Johnny Can't Estimate? (Update) - in the domain of engineered systems for complex software intensive system of systems, estimates are the foundation of decision making.
• The #NoEstimates Argument from Ignorance - the conjecture is #NoEstimates advocates is You can make a decision in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the outcome of that decision.
• Popper, Falsifiability and #NoEstimates - The problem is not when a conjecture like - #Noestimates - may be true but establishing defensible criteria for drawing the distinction between a principle and the pseudo-science of an unsubstantiated conjecture that credible decisions can be made in the presence of uncertainty, while spending other people's money, without estimating the outcome of that decision?
• Black Swans - one of the favorite books of the most vocal #NoEstimates is Black Swans
• The Fallacy of #NoEstimates - There is a Blog Video speaking about #NoEstimates that opens with these statements.
• What is an Estimate? What is Estimating? - I work in a domain where estimates are made every single week. Estimate to Complete (ETC), Estimate at Completion (EAC), Estimated Completion Date (ECD) are the life blood of our software intensive system of systems programs. To the left is a typical SISoS we work.
• Decisions Without Estimates? - Here is a question posted at an agile conference. Can you make a decision without an estimate? Like many discussions in the domain of agility, the statement is made without any evidence that it is true, nor can it be true in principle. This type of fallacy is common in the #NoEstimates community.
• #NoEstimates Book - Chapter 1 Summation - I posted some comments on the #NoEstimates book awhile back.  I have a break this week and would like to sum up Chapter 1.
• 12 Principles of Agile with and without Estimates - It's popular to speak about the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Principles of Agile. When we hear that the next big thing in agile is Not Estimating, let's look to see how those 12 Principles can be applied without those estimates? 
• #NoEstimates and the System of Profound Ignorance (SOPI) - Deming's approach to problem solving is based on The System of Profound Knowledge (SOPK). The anti-pattern of SOPK is The System of Profound Ignorance (SOPI). 
• The #NoEstimates Paradigm and Response - Thanks to Sean Craig's Live Sketch Note for capturing concepts directly from Woody Zuill's talk. This is a good starting point for answering the mail on the notion that decisions can be made in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the impact of those decisions.
• Deconstructing a #NoEstimates Argument - Here's a recent presentation on using #Noestimates. Let's deconstruct these ideas in light of several principles and practices of making decisions in the presence of uncertainty.
• How to Estimate Any Software Problem - The conjecture of #NoEstimates started with a Tweet. The conjecture - (there are) ... ways to make decisions with No Estimates ... is not founded on any principle of business management, microeconomics of decision making, or principles of probability and statistics. It's a fallacy.
• Can You Make a Decision in the Presence of Uncertainty Without Estimating? - #NoEstimates advocate claim You can make a non-trivial (not de minimis) decision in the presence of uncertainty?
• Beautiful Example of the Disconnect Between Those who Pay and Those Who Spend - a counter to a No Estimates advocate claiming that estimates are worthless.
• Decision Making Without Estimates - In a recent post, there are 5 suggestions of how decisions about software development can be made in the absence of estimating the cost, duration, and impact of these decisions. Before looking at each in more detail, let's see what the basis is for these suggestions from the post.

So with the current list here and the contents of this list 

• Compendium of Debunking #NoEstimates Conjecture and Fallacies - The conjecture that we can make decisions in the presence of uncertainty without estimating the impacts of those decisions is without any principles that can be tested beyond personal anecdotes of I know people who spend other people's money without providing estimates. This is a compendium of more blogs on #Noestimates debunking. A few in this list are duplicates in the current list. 

There is ample evidence that No Estimates as a concept is bunk. QED.