Rob Thomsett had an article titled "Estimation Games" published in American Programmer, 1996:
> It is our belief that over the 30 plus years of commercial computing has developed a series of sophisticated political games that have become a replacement for estimation as a formal process.
> More importantly, like all good games they are passed on from generation to generation by "children" I.T. people learning from "adult" managers who of course learnt the games from their adults when they were children and so on. Of course, none of the academic institutions [our preschools] prepare the new I.T. graduate for these games but rather, leave it to the cold reality of the work environment to teach graduates [the new children] that estimation techniques are only good for teaching in university.
> The good news is that I.T. can estimate better. The bad news is that there are lifetimes of games and refining of games that have to be avoided to do this.
There may be a niche for enlightened managers or startup funders to promote such a thinking. If successful it will lead to a clear competitive advantage.
This is true. But there is no competitive advantage in going and broadcasting to all your competitors exactly how you achieved the advantage. So the development shops that succeed using this will keep it tight.
No. Good luck persuading the management to try something else!