Delivery
“Our estimates no longer mean anything.”
Some tasks take a tenth of the time. Others take twice as long. Planning has turned into guesswork.
01 / The challenge
You will recognize this if…
- Story points and effort models were calibrated before AI arrived.
- Commitments to the business keep slipping, or are padded to be safe.
- Teams cannot agree whether AI makes a given task faster or slower.
- Vendors quote the same effort as before, with AI added on top.
02 / Why it happens
The root cause.
Estimation assumed people write the code, so effort followed size. With AI, effort depends on how well a task suits AI, how much context the tools have, and how much checking the result needs. Old reference points stop working, and people’s own sense of how fast they are going is unreliable.
Estimation was always uncertain, but it rested on a stable assumption: effort grew with size. AI breaks that. A large task may take an hour; a small one may take days of checking. Gut feel, even an experienced engineer's, is no longer a reliable guide.
We believe forecasts should come from your own recent evidence, be expressed as ranges, and be refreshed every loop. Leaders get dates they can trust, and teams stop being judged on guesses.
04 / How we solve it
What we do about it, with you.
We rebuild estimation on your own evidence and hand your teams a model they can keep using.
- 01
Re-baseline on your own work
Build reference data from what your teams have actually delivered with AI, not from industry averages.
- 02
Sort work by AI fit
Separate work AI accelerates from work it slows down, and estimate each differently.
- 03
Forecast from flow
Plan in short loops and forecast from measured throughput, with confidence ranges instead of single dates.
- 04
Estimate bids the new way
An estimation model for AI-era work that holds up in budgets, proposals and fixed-price bids.
Commitments the business can rely on
Forecasts based on evidence, not optimism
Budgets and bids that reflect how work is done now
Does this sound like your team?
Tell us what you are seeing, and we will tell you honestly whether and how we can help.