A client’s team spent a full week adding a CSV export to their admin panel. Two engineers, clear requirements, maybe a day of actual work. The rest of the time went to understanding existing code well enough to change it safely. That’s what I call codebase drag: when the codebase makes every task take longer than it should. It doesn’t show up in any dashboard or sprint report.
To quote my manager from today: “I don’t want us to spin our wheels and turn this into a month long effort”
The request is to effectively rearchitect a foundational part of the system. It’s a large lift project that should take weeks.
Of course I pushed back, I have good rapport with him and I’m not worried about getting fired over this. Not everyone has that.
“This isn’t a bazaar. We don’t haggle over deadlines. We professionally estimate them.”
Nevermind, it does sound like you work in software. This is a very familiar quote. x.x And it always comes right before planning slows to a crawl.
I’ve never heard the phrase “We professionally estimate deadlines”, but I’m gonna start using it. Thanks for that little nugget!
“You want the four year sabotage and effort instead of the one to two month long effort?”
Yes, the investors require it.