Don’t call it easy

A common mistake I see developers make is to estimate a piece of work as “easy.”

In the best case scenario, the estimate is correct, in which case the developer has only cheapened the value of the work itself.

In the worst case scenario, the estimate is incorrect, and the developer has damaged their credibility, and maybe confused the project timeline.

There’s never any benefit to calling something easy. So why do developers make this mistake?

Probably because, like me, they want to project confidence and appear capable. It feels great to to be able to say “that’s easy.” It probably used to be hard for us. It probably is the case that most people wouldn’t even know where to start and would say “that’s hard”.

So we think we’re now impressive when we say “that’s easy.”

But we’re not. By saying “that’s easy” we only risk our credibility if we’re wrong, or lower our value if we’re right.