They can. I've had a time where a project manager came by no less than 3 times asking me to re-estimate the same project, tweaked ever so slightly each time. Turned out that they had made an impossible promise to the client. Upon learning that, I just said, listen that can't be done within that budget, end of story. You have to go reduce the scope. In the end, they had to go back, loop in the account manager and have the awkward conversation with the client.
No offence to Geordi La Forge.
https://youtu.be/latWmQtm8fw?t=22
In your estimating, remember to always add buffer time.
It is by trading quality pretty often, but that often is exactly trade off managers want. It is often by trading future productivity - engineers burning out or at least having drop after deadline.
Future productivity? If engineers are burning out in an attempt to meet otherwise impossible deadlines, it means they're being placed under enough stress that it's threatening their mental and possibly physical health. Is employee health really something that can be traded away?
In theory? No. In practice? Very much yes.
Health (particularly mental well-being) isn't readily and reliably quantifiable. As a manager, you may think your subordinate is happy and productive all the way up to the point they hand you their resignation letter. Meanwhile, employees have every reason to pretend everything is OK up to the very moment they secure a new job elsewhere. And to the extent they're becoming less productive due to burnout, most software jobs has a lot of slack in it - between high variance in problem solving and plenty of bullshit tasks to juggle, someone working at 10% of their normal capacity can stay unnoticed for a while.
With no good feedback being available, it's hard to see you're putting too much pressure on your employees, particularly if you don't look for it (whether because you're too busy or just don't care).
There are resources which may help. Here's an article that's specific to stress:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6345505/
> As a manager, you may think your subordinate is happy and productive all the way up to the point they hand you their resignation letter.
This is the same problem we have with depression and suicide. The answer is to actively look for it.
> Meanwhile, employees have every reason to pretend everything is OK up to the very moment they secure a new job elsewhere.
An evaluation of a person's mental health produces medical information which should of course be confidential. People will not open up if they think this information will be shared with others, especially their bosses or colleagues.
> And to the extent they're becoming less productive due to burnout, most software jobs has a lot of slack in it - between high variance in problem solving and plenty of bullshit tasks to juggle, someone working at 10% of their normal capacity can stay unnoticed for a while.
Many diseases also have a subclinical phase where they show few or no symptoms. This is actually a good thing since it allows you to intervene before a complication manifests itself. The answer is to actively look for them.
> it's hard to see you're putting too much pressure on your employees, particularly if you don't look for it (whether because you're too busy or just don't care).
Hard, but not impossible. The answers won't be found if the people responsible aren't looking for them. If managers are too busy, maybe they should make the time. If they don't care, they should straight up be fired for gross negligence.
How would this information be useful if it's not shared with the boss?
Regardless, I don't think the biggest issue is people are afraid that the information will be shared, but that there's a stigma around being associated with a mental health issue that causes lower productivity in the workplace. Employees are more likely to keep that kind of thing a secret because they likely believe knowledge of it will make it harder to get raises and promotions.
Indirection and anonymization. The details of each individual aren't supposed to be shared but a healthcare professional can recommend changes to the manager that if implemented would promote a healthier workplace. They can point out that the whole workplace is stressful and talk to the managers about how they can improve that. Hopefully deadlines will be addressed.
There's an entire medical specialty devoted to this: occupational medicine.
> Employees are more likely to keep that kind of thing a secret because they likely believe knowledge of it will make it harder to get raises and promotions.
Unreasonable deadlines are likely to stress entire groups of people, not single individuals. It's worth addressing as an issue affecting the collective workforce.
Practically yes. Not necessary because management are all sociopaths and narcissists (some are). What management see is well performing motivated employee that does not complain. People are expected to not talk about about them being tired, about their mental issues and put themselves at disadvantage if they show weakness.
Employees in order to look good and for the sake of own ego, dont admit they are at limit. The ego thing is big co-reason, that is what prevents employee from taking action. (And yes employee often has that option.)
When employee breaks and stops performing, he is kept around for the sake of old glory for a while. Then he is either replaced or hidden in one of those sleepy corporate departments full of considered loosers. The employee is then blamed for consequences of break down.
Any remotely healthy team will perform estimation and scoping as a discussion with the developers involved. The author of this post sounds like he has worked at an extremely dysfunctional company, not a company that understands how to develop software.
This idea that managers are universally incompetent just isn't true. The best thing you can do is refuse to support incompetent managers. Change teams or change jobs if you must. There are many, many great managers out there who won't try to pull nonsense like this.
It looks like they're assuming we're all lazy. They think the job isn't that hard. A fundamental lack of respect.