As the article says, the important thing is knowing what purpose is the estimate supposed to serve. Mathematically speaking, do we want to know the mean, the median, the worst case, the 90% or 99% percentile?
Unfortunately, in my experience it usually does not help to ask your manager about the purpose, because the answer is often “I simply need you to make an estimate”. Then, if you make a 99% percentile estimate, the manager will complain that it is too much; and if you make a mean estimate, the manager will complain whenever the task takes longer than estimated.
As the article says, the important thing is knowing what purpose is the estimate supposed to serve. Mathematically speaking, do we want to know the mean, the median, the worst case, the 90% or 99% percentile?
Unfortunately, in my experience it usually does not help to ask your manager about the purpose, because the answer is often “I simply need you to make an estimate”. Then, if you make a 99% percentile estimate, the manager will complain that it is too much; and if you make a mean estimate, the manager will complain whenever the task takes longer than estimated.