Monday 21 March 2016

#yestimates?

Some time ago I wrote a post about the #yestimates hashtag. A quite uncontroversial post...
Lately I have thought about it. Why is it even needed? I think this tweet frames my thinking quite accurately:



(The tweet points out that the "#yestimates camp" has no wisdom (the "..."). As if we are somehow obligated to come up with our own ideas and, if we don't, we should not question things.)

It feels as if it has me down as someone who just loves estimates. I don't. I'd love to not have to estimate (although I see value in estimating. To quote Dave Gordon "the best estimates open a dialog").
#yestimates didn't even exist before there was #noestimates. In that way it's only meta. It has me down as someone promoting or defending estimates as if it even means anything.
One could also claim that #yestimates is equally binary as #noestimates. As if that means anything (see what this is doing?)

To summarize; without #noestimates there wouldn't be #yestimates. Thus, it isn't needed.