Seems like giving time-based estimates just isn't feasible, though. Sure, for some types of problems it's not hard (though it feels like tasks that can be that easily estimated should probably be automated), but many are new/hard problems that need to be solved. Yes, it would be great to have accurate time-based estimates, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. But there are lots of things that would be great that we can't have.
Maybe just ranking tasks by difficulty, or using Fibonacci rankings as recommended by some for Agile story points, would be a better use of everyone's time. That way, you can still say "A is roughly X times harder than B", without trying to rely on (almost certainly wrong) estimates in terms of days/months/years.
Maybe just ranking tasks by difficulty, or using Fibonacci rankings as recommended by some for Agile story points, would be a better use of everyone's time. That way, you can still say "A is roughly X times harder than B", without trying to rely on (almost certainly wrong) estimates in terms of days/months/years.