So you’re always late. Your friends ask when are you coming, and you always give way too optimistic answer. Or something else happens. In any case — you’re always late. Simply put, there are two possible ways to handle the issue:
- Find a solution: You try to be better in estimating your arrival. You take into consideration that traffic affects your travel time. You remember that putting your clothes on takes longer in winter. You add marginals to your “arrival estimates”. This way you are better estimating your time consumption, and as a consequence, you’re more often on time.
- Change the problem: You change the setting so that either you don’t have to give an “arrival estimate” or it doesn’t matter that much if you’re late. For example, instead of meeting outside of restaurant before going in, you agree to meet in a bar nearby. So if you’re late, your friends can just have one more aperitif, no big deal. Maybe your dinner party starts with a flexible cocktail party period instead of punctual time. So we change the problem from “How to be on time?” to “How to change things so that my friends don’t need to rely on estimates so much?”
The way I see it , currently #NoEstimates is about option #2 — changing the business so that you lessen the need to estimate. If you stay within #1, the solution space, I agree that #NoEstimates makes no sense. If someone asks “how long is it going to take?”, you need to estimate to answer, there is simply no way around it!
The key questions here are “How do I change my way of doing business so that I don’t need to ask ‘how much? when?’ so often, or if I do, it is for shorter period of time? How do I deliver value sooner? How do I validate my concept ASAP?”
One small addition: in real life, #1 and #2 are not mutually exclusive. You can, and should, usually do both.