May 17, 2017 SAN FRANCISCO - Frustrated by the consistently dreadful ability of developers to predict how long features will take to finish, a faction of technology companies around the bay area are resorting to sacrificing chickens and divining project timelines from the viscera. The most remarkable part: it seems to be working.

Organizations that have turned to fowl hepatoscopy for setting project deadlines, staffing teams, and quarterly planning have reportedly experienced overwhelmingly positive results - most notably a 60% reduction in the margin of error when compared to laughable estimates provided by technical staff. Companies with even a marginal ability to derive milestone time spans from the livers of freshly slaughtered poultry observed astonishing accuracy increases over their engineers just pulling estimates out of their asses.

The tech industry as a whole is already moving quickly to embrace interpretation of chicken guts and leave the era of “it should only take a couple days” behind. Numerous startups have already formed to partner with farms and form supply chains that divert huge shipments of live chickens directly to urban areas. Offices are beginning to feature facilities that offer privacy to the high priests as to not distract the technical staff with the carnage or clucking generated from chickens being torn to pieces. “It’s a win for everybody except the chickens” remarked Box CEO Aaron Levie in an interview with reporters, gripping a gory cleaver as he coolly answered questions. “Software engineers are atrocious at predicting how long it will take to finish a task - it’s always been a contentious issue. Who could have known the answer was lying inside a flightless domesticated bird?”

This article was originally published on AlwaysTrending, a fantastic (but archived) satire site by Matt Frisbie. Copied here with permission of the author.