Estimation & Ordering

Estimation as decomposition, uncertainty communicated instead of hidden, the riskiest unknown first, and what to build first.

Estimation as Decomposition
▶ lab

"This will take two weeks" is a feeling about a list you have not written. Break the store into product model, cart, checkout, payment, testing and deployment, estimate each with a range, and the number becomes something you can defend — and revise.

Q · Someone asks how long the store will take. What do you do before answering, and what makes the answer more than a guess with a unit on it?
Communicating Uncertainty
▶ lab

A range you know and a point you say is a lie by rounding. Estimates should carry their uncertainty — what is known, what is assumed, what has not been discovered yet — in a form the listener can plan with, without false precision and without hiding behind "it depends".

Q · You have a decomposed estimate with wide pieces in it. How do you tell someone who needs a date, without either inventing precision or refusing to answer?
Risk-First Development
▶ lab

When everything is easy except one thing, the one thing decides the project. Prototype the payment integration before polishing product cards — not because payment is most valuable, but because it is the piece whose answer could change everything else.

Q · One piece of the system is unfamiliar and the rest is routine. Where should the first week go, and what does "risk" actually mean when choosing?
What to Build First
▶ lab

Dependency, risk, user value and learning value — four questions asked of each piece, and the first vertical slice falls out. One possible sequence for the store, and the other sequences that are also right, and when.

Q · The decomposition is done and everything is on the list. Which piece is first, which is second, and what makes an order defensible rather than habitual?