Agile estimating and planning
by Mike Cohn · first published 2005
8mentions
5recommended by
7HN commenters
2011–2025first – last mentioned
71% recommend29% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical guide to estimating and planning in agile teams, covering how to size work and plan releases. It serves as a solid, practical starting point for engineers and managers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…Cohn resources were the most helpful to me: - free presentations around estimating and planning (eg: http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/presentations/131-agile-... and others on the same site) - the "Agile Estimating and Planning" book (http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Estimating-Planning-Mike-Cohn/dp...) - Mike Cohn "Agile Estimating and Planning" course (2 days) was worth taking * Software estimation: demystifying the black art…
on “Ask HN: tips for improving scheduling estimates?” ↗A gret book on that is Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn[1]. Having that said, there has been a lot of controversy on the value of estimates recently: Estimation is Evil[2] Purpose of Estimation[3] I believe their TL;DR comes from the second…
on “Software Development Estimates: Where Do I Start?” ↗…General Systems Thinking - Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach So that you have a good answer to "when will it be ready" - Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art - Agile Estimating and Planning People management - The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change - High Output Management Besides Mythical Man Month already mentioned in other comments.
on “Ask HN: What are good books/blogs to read for a first time CTO?” ↗"Agile Estimating and Planning" by Mike Cohn is pretty good.
on “Ask HN: Best practice for estimating development tasks?” ↗…since there wasn't time to have proper automated and acceptance testing. Books I found useful, although I'm not a CTO myself (a bit methodology dependant, sorry): The Art of Agile Development (O'Reilly) Agile Estimating and Planning (Prentice Hall)
on “New CTO. How do I manage developers and report to CEO?” ↗…to" Linked Issue relation; EE also supports "blocks"/"is blocked by". Planning poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planning_poker Agile estimation: https://www.google.com/search?q=agile+estimation "Agile Estimating and Planning" (2005) https://g.co/kgs/kDScM7
on “Show HN: I built my own PM tool after trying Trello, Asana, ClickUp, etc.” ↗Because not all of them read Agile Estimating and Planning[1] [1] http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/books/1-agile-estimating...
on “Why Can't Developers Estimate Time?” ↗How much time have you invested into it as a skill set ? Have you read product thinking, the lean startup, agile estimating and planning ? How do you expect to leverage a methodology if you don’t do a deep dive and become an expert.
on “The Insanity of Being a Software Engineer” ↗