I'm curious about what you guys think of giving percentage updates. Like we have an x project, there are i, j, k things to do and you're asked to give percentage completed on the sub tasks. I feel like we're generally bad at estimating, now you have to consider the weight of each sub-sub tasks and I feel like when you give a percentage update, project managers and clients will eventually ask you "why is the 20% of work not done yet". I feel like it makes the work look a lot easier than it is.

I don't like it. I tried doing it briefly but it's too abstract and never works... Really you will only ever use the values 0%, 20%, 50%, 80% and 100%

Which as well might just be a kanban board with

ToDo, In Progress, Review, Done

Percentage of what? Time estimated? Number of lines written? Number of tasks done? Number of subfeatures done?

It never made sense for me

How can you know in advance how much a task will require? If you already know what are all the sub-sub-subtasks then you have nothing to do.

It's better divide a task in stages: analysis, development, testing, deployment, certification, debugging, acceptance.

They are 7 stages, which is 14% for each stage, assuming a flat distribution.

Let's say you have just written the code, then you are 28% done.

@crisz nothing prevents the progress bar from moving backwards. Maybe start at 50% and decrease it when you feel like the amount of work left you know of has increased.

Agree with everyone here. I'd be curious to give them the progress went back lol. I'll try it out and let you guys know how that turns out.

@netikras yeah it's been frustrating. First my pm asks we don't give enough details in our daily updates. We start giving details and now he wants to abstract it and asks us to update the percentage completed in one of his Google sheets 🙃

@DeepFriedBeans

Google sheets... Oh boy. Someone is really dumb.

Percentage only works if you have an task which can be represented by a fixed quantitative unit.

E.g. replacing 500 lines in a file. The number of lines doesn't change, it's fixed. Then percentage makes sense - if you replace 125 lines, your task is 25 % done.

For everything else: Nope. Noooooooooo. Don't fall in that trap, I mean it.

E.g. when one splits a task in
Kickoff, Planning, Decision / Strategy, Implementation Phase...

It's obvious that the task isn't done to 75 % done cause one finished decision / strategy, as implementation will most likely be the longest part.

Which brings me to the trap.

An estimate is not a fixed unit.

Just cause the estimate exists, doesn't mean the estimate will be hold.

That's the - sadly - biggest and dumbest assumption a manager can make.

An estimate is a guess. A deadline is an guess. Not fixed units. No no.

:)

Have a pancake. 🥞.

@IntrusionCM yeah I've tried explaining something similar to my pm but he doesn't like to listen. He somehow needs all the details and also abstract numbers for him to make his reports. I've concluded that he prioritizes reports and updates to clients and higher ups rather than the actual software development process.

Anyways, I'll have the pancakes 🥞