Estimation is the process of finding an estimate, or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable.
I was presented with a new problem recently, to provide an estimate for a project in which I must use a framework (and potentially bits of another framework) that I am unfamiliar with. It's much easier for me to provide estimates when I'm at liberty…
Sometimes, there are research and development projects where nothing is known in advance about the technology, concepts, and client. However, the manager still needs time estimates. What can I do to produce useful estimates?
I'm currently using Planning Poker to do our detailed estimates. This works great but relies upon a fairly detailed work breakdown. Often it takes 6-8 weeks to get a sufficiently detailed design and work breakdown.
I've found the 6-8 weeks of…
To handle task-level estimates and time reporting, I have been using (roughly) the technique that Steve McConnell describes in Chapter 10 of Software Estimation. Specifically, when the time comes for me to create task-level estimates (right before…
For example, if I break a project into n discrete work products (say classes or functions or components) is there a time t such that n*t is a suitable amount of time to spend on estimation?
So my client asked me to provide a rough estimate of a number of CPU cores and the needed memory for a specific project I'm working on. But the project is complex, is different from anything I've been working on and different from anything they have…
I'm writing a lot of estimates lately and I'm finding that quite often, a client might argue scope, deliverables or (most often) cost.
In an effort to ensure that the breadth of coverage (of client requirements and mutually understood scope) for the…
I read the Spolsky blog the post with title "Evidence based scheduling" (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html) but I don't understand the mechanism to predict and estimate interruptions.
If I understand, Splosky says to prepare 100…
Currently in my office we have an age old problem, which I feel has been discussed to death by many, yet solved by few. The clients want a monetary amount, project managers want to know how many hours it will take, and developers only want to…
This is one SW development problem that hits the sea of developers as they crash into the rocks of management. Somewhere down the line the estimate given by the programmer gets translated to a date and quite soon it translates into a deadline.…
Background
It is now well understood (if not always well communicated) that the following logic does not apply to software development project estimates:
A project that would take 1 developer 12 days,
would take 2 developers 6 days,
…
To better understand my question, let me elaborate the background of the subject matter.
I work in a financial institution where the business module (credit finance) is constantly changing. In the IT world, however, the developers have a 6 week…
As the title says, why do developers (especially, but not only, new developers) habitually underestimate the work involved in 'greenfield' projects or 'total rewrites'?
We all know that software estimation is not a science, but most problems to be…
I'm going to be teaching a class that covers a broad brush of estimation techniques. I intend to cover absolute estimation techniques based on SLOC (e.g. Function Points, COCOMO II etc.) and relativistic ones like T-shirt sizing, story-point…
Here's my dilemma... I need to provide a rough order of magnitude estimate for development time of a system that we know the requirements (story map created) however we don't yet have a technical team in place to do the work. The issue is this,…
