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"If the train leaves every 5 minutes you don't care about a timetable. If it leaves every 2 days you want to know *exactly* when it leaves"
Great analogy from Marcus Hamrin reflecting on planning, estimating and software delivery.
@mfloryan He has obviously never travelled on South West Trains…. 
@thirstybear I think there is a story about predictability there somewhere 
@mfloryan yes, although even with very regular trains, if every train is fully booked then people will still want a booked seat guaranteed on a particular train.
@MatthewPCooke @mfloryan that, and where every train is similar (so you can afford not to care) every increment in software delivery is different. The analogy should be ‘A train is leaving every 5 min, but all trains have a different destination’. Would you still not care about a timetable in that case?
@Dave_von_s @mfloryan yes, the train leaving every 5 mins only relaxes people who know that they can generally get their destination and seat prioritised whenever they want.
@Dave_von_s @mfloryan of course in some situations (a few closely aligned key stakeholders demanding lots of estimated delivery dates) that can be useful.
@mfloryan yes but when a traveller changes his/her destination throughout the day it also becomes more difficult to plan a departure and arrival.
@mfloryan rail transportation in this country where I live is a massively contentious subject.
@mfloryan I see the value on the analogy but it is not quite right. For in software development each deployment is a train to a different location. So if it launches every two weeks or every 5 minutes it does not matter as much. You might only care for when the train that goes to Feature X is arriving.