Why Hourly Estimates For User Stories And Technical Tasks May Seem Crazy But You Need To Do Them…

Hiten Shah Founder of Product Habits (right) and Poornima Vijayashanker, founder of Femgineer (left)

Interview with Hiten Shah Founder of Product Habits

We began this month with a all the aftershocks of using current product management methodologies to estimate user stories. Then in , we dove into Hiten Shah’s new EAT approach which boils down to doing hourly estimates.

Don’t worry if you thought Hiten was crazy, you aren’t alone!

We received a lot of questions, concerns, and objections, so in today’s episode we’re going to dive into the top 3 we heard again and again:

Objection #1: My team is still healing from our previous approach.

“My team adopted agile five years ago and experienced a number of problems that you talked about in the first episode. So, six months ago we took the plunge and decided on no estimates and, of course you can imagine, we’re still recovering from it. The wounds are raw. So, how am I going to get my team to try something new especially since this is going to be another investment in terms of time?” — Product Manager from Palo Alto

Objection #2: This won’t for our customers who want quick fixes!

“I hate to play the blame game, but a big source of our problems is our customers. Many want quick fixes, so we end up at their mercy and boy, do they hate eating their vegetables. How do I get them to come around?” — New Product Manager from NYC

Objection #3: My team is eager to adopt a new process but how will this help them follow through?

“Hiten and Poornima, thanks again for this series. Unlike some of your other audience members, I have the opposite problem. My teammates are eager to adopt a new process, but when they hit a snag they are quick to punt and just do whatever they think they need to do to get the job done. What is the one thing you would advise they do to follow through when implementing the process and practice of hourly estimates?” — Team Lead from Tulsa

Do any of these sound familiar?

Watch this week’s episode to hear Hiten’s response to each!

Listen to the episode on iTunes!

You can listen to this episode of Build on iTunes.

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Check out these additional resources on estimating stories for your product:

• Product Habits
• How Long Does It Take To Get A Startup Company Off The Ground
• How Much Time And Money It’s Going To Take To Productize Your Idea
• My Nightmares With Engineering Estimates
• Story Points, T-shirt Sizing and Time Buckets: How Tech Companies Do Engineering Estimates
• Deadline That Are Doomed From The Beginning
• No One Likes A Creep

Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.