While the manager was out of line with his demand. He's not fully to blame. If you were working in fully unfamiliar territory, there is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know." It took me a while to realize that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer, so I know how much it stings to utter those words. But if you truly don't know then that's the answer. And if they balk at that ask them to give you an estimate of how many pennies it will take to make a stack as tall as the Sears (make it Willis) Tower. And would they be willing to sign a contract paying you every penny they were off?

Any Project Manager worth his salary should know that somethings don't fit nice and pretty in a spreadsheet. Sometimes things are done when they're done. I think you're doing well by giving progress on how much you've done. Just stop giving the number updates.

Another exercise is to break the large task down into smaller more estimable units. This exercise will help you understand better what you need to do as well. Check out Steve McConnell's Software Estimation and Stephen Withall's Software Requirements Patterns for tips on breaking down tasks and discovering hidden requirements, respectively.

Don't shoot from the hip on an estimate. Take the time to break it down. Estimating a large number of small tasks will give you a better overall estimate (due to the law of averages some of your estimates will be under but some will be over and they will tend to weigh each other out) of the big task.

While the manager was out of line with his demand. He's not fully to blame. If you were working in fully unfamiliar territory, there is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know." It took me a while to realize that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer, so I know how much it stings to utter those words. But if you truly don't know then that's the answer. And if they balk at that ask them to give you an estimate of how many pennies it will take to make a stack as tall as the Sears (make it Willis) Tower. And would they be willing to sign a contract paying you every penny they were off?

Any Project Manager worth his salary should know that some things don't fit nice and pretty in a spreadsheet. Sometimes things are done when they're done. I think you're doing well by giving progress on how much you've done. Just stop giving the number updates.

Another exercise is to break the large task down into smaller more estimable units. This exercise will help you understand better what you need to do as well. Check out Steve McConnell's Software Estimation and Stephen Withall's Software Requirements Patterns for tips on breaking down tasks and discovering hidden requirements, respectively.

Don't shoot from the hip on an estimate. Take the time to break it down. Estimating a large number of small tasks will give you a better overall estimate (due to the law of averages some of your estimates will be under but some will be over and they will tend to weigh each other out) of the big task.

While the manager was out of line with his demand. He's not fully to blame. If you were working in fully unfamiliar territory, there is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know." It took me a while to realize that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer, so I know how much it stings to utter those words. But if you truly don't know then that's the answer. And if they balk at that ask them to give you an estimate of how many pennies it will take to make a stack as tall as the Sears (make it Willis) Tower. And would they be willing to sign a contract paying you every penny they were off?

While the manager was out of line with his demand. He's not fully to blame. If you were working in fully unfamiliar territory, there is nothing wrong with saying "I don't know." It took me a while to realize that "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer, so I know how much it stings to utter those words. But if you truly don't know then that's the answer. And if they balk at that ask them to give you an estimate of how many pennies it will take to make a stack as tall as the Sears (make it Willis) Tower. And would they be willing to sign a contract paying you every penny they were off?

Any Project Manager worth his salary should know that somethings don't fit nice and pretty in a spreadsheet. Sometimes things are done when they're done. I think you're doing well by giving progress on how much you've done. Just stop giving the number updates.

Another exercise is to break the large task down into smaller more estimable units. This exercise will help you understand better what you need to do as well. Check out Steve McConnell's Software Estimation and Stephen Withall's Software Requirements Patterns for tips on breaking down tasks and discovering hidden requirements, respectively.

Don't shoot from the hip on an estimate. Take the time to break it down. Estimating a large number of small tasks will give you a better overall estimate (due to the law of averages some of your estimates will be under but some will be over and they will tend to weigh each other out) of the big task.