Let's face the reality and be honest with ourself, Engineers are bad at estimating.
Engineers are bad are answering the question "How much time do you need to develop this item?". The answer depends on multiple factors that I don't want to discuss here. Literature is full of examples.
However, Engineers are good at comparing things. Engineers are quite confident into saying: "This item looks twice bigger than this one."
In the Agile community, the best practice to provide estimate is to use the Planning Poker with Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, infinite).
The key point in Planning Poker is that it is a consensus-based approach that trigger discussions within the team.
Materials: Poker card game or set of post-it numbered (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, infinite). Each team member must have a Poker card game.
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