Estimating work you have never done

Back to list2025-10-28
You

How do you estimate a task with unknown parts?

ChatGPT

Timebox the unknown separately. Estimate the known work normally, then add an explicit investigation slot with a decision point at the end. Merging the two produces a number that is wrong in a way nobody can inspect.

You

What is the most common way people get this wrong?

ChatGPT

Doing it once and never verifying. The setup is the visible part, so it gets attention, and the check that would catch a silent failure never gets written.