Today I was involved in some discussion of how we can improve our estimating procedures. Being a believer in agile techniques, my approach to estimating is quite a bit different than the traditional approach to estimation. Traditional estimation involves breaking down the work into tasks, then assigning an estimate of effort in hours/days/etc to each task. This is then combined into a gantt chart or something similar to create a schedule of the work to be done. Agile estimation doesn't do estimates ......