Estimation is needed but useless. Do it and throw away the numbers!

I've discussed this idea a few times with some friends, but I'll concede that the ultimate argument for stopping to estimate altogether is still to come...

In the meanwhile here is more food for thought. Rob Bowley argues why estimations are bad in software development.

My favorite part of his presentation:
[In a study discussed in Peopleware by Lister and De Marco, it was found that "the highest [software development] average productivity was on those projects that didn’t estimate at all."