Great article and I love all the feedback and discussion going on. I think I understand your point. However, I’m curious what you would recommend for my business?

We build custom software applications for companies. Most of the time, there is an RFP process that requires a quote with budget and schedule estimates. Sometimes these are T&M, FFP, Target Cost, or some hybrid. In each case though, the customer wants to know how much it’s going to cost and when the software will be completed. This seems like a perfect reasonable request. If I was hiring someone to do work for me, I’d want to know the same thing.

It’s fine to hear people say stop estimating, don’t use story points, etc. But what are professional software service organizations like mine supposed to do? What’s the alternative? Please be mindful that if I told all my customers I’m not going to estimate, it’s very unlikely we would still be in business today after 25 successful years.

–Chris