No Estimates, Maximum Results with Vasco Duarte

What if the estimates we fight so hard to defend are actually the very thing slowing us down?

In this episode, Felipe sits down with Vasco Duarte --- Agile coach, author of #NoEstimates, and host of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast --- for a candid conversation about why traditional estimation may be creating more illusion than clarity... and what to do instead.

Vasco brings serious field credibility. He led initiatives at Nokia involving 500 people, 100 teams, across four continents. And he saw projects fail not because the work was impossible --- but because leaders trusted the plan more than the evidence unfolding in real time.

This conversation hits home for construction and project management professionals who operate under pressure, contracts, and commitments.

Key Takeaways
- 📊 Throughput beats upfront estimation --- forecasting based on actual delivery rate consistently outperforms speculative planning.
- 🔁 Scope is the real lever --- when time and budget are fixed, scope becomes the only honest variable.
- 🧠 Reality always wins --- complex work behaves stochastically. Plans that ignore this get punished.
- 🏗️ Pull planning isn't new --- software and construction independently discovered the same backward-planning principle.
- 🤝 Scrum is human work --- frameworks don't save teams; people do.

This episode isn't anti-planning.

It's anti-delusion.

Whether you're running a job site or leading a software team, this conversation will challenge how you think about forecasting, commitments, and control.

👍 Like and Subscribe

Connect with Vasco
Website: https://about.me/duarte_vasco

Connect with Felipe
Social media & free Lean and Scrum training resources:
https://thefelipe.bio.link

Registered Scrum Master (RSM) Course:
https://store.theebfcshow.com/rsm

Subscribe on YouTube:
https://click.theebfcshow.com/youtube

Watch The EBFC Show Podcast:
https://click.theebfcshow.com/YouTube-Podcast


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