PM Dark Arts - Estimation Bargaining
19 Jun 2014 • monkeyandcrow.comPeople mistake time and effort when they enter into Estimation Bargaining.
You can't negotiate effort. Effort is like mass, it's a physical property of a project. Given a set of requirements, you're going to have to do a certain amount of work to do to achieve those requirements.
You can negotiate time, but you shouldn't. The trick is that Peter changed the discussion from effort to time. You're still doing 8 weeks of work, you just have half the time now.
A great read for anyone doing billable client work that ever involves upfront estimates.