Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Do you know where your variables are?
 
PerlMonks  

Re: Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

by blahblahblah (Priest)
on Jun 12, 2007 at 13:54 UTC ( [id://620724]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

I also would recommend this book to all programmers. It's a very understandable blend of guidelines plus the math and research that led to the formulation of those guidelines. It has greatly helped me in my current project, which was one of the biggest projects I've ever undertaken.

I often get asked for quick estimates of projects. My self-taught estimation technique had evolved like this over the years:
1. give a quick guess (usually turned out 3x too short)
2. make a quick guess, then triple that (usually closer, but still too short)
3. give a wildly pessimistic guess (never short, but not what my boss wants to hear)
Since reading the book, I feel my boss & I are both happier with the estimates/schedule that we figure out together.

In addition to presenting an easy-to-grasp summary of research into various individual factors that influence an estimate/schedule (like tilly's examples), the book leaves gives a lot of practical ideas for making better estimates.

Joe

  • Comment on Re: Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Interesting insights from Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
by dpavlin (Friar) on Jun 16, 2007 at 21:08 UTC
    I had similar process when finding out my estimation factor. I also notices that my (positive) estimates are three times too short.

    However, when I need to estimate time for group of people, even if I know them really well, and can estimate time for each of them individually, I would probably take a optimistic guess, multiply it by three and than take next time unit.

    Yes, convert hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to months... Months would go to quoters or years, but you would already know that :-)

    This technique proved very successful in estimating time for small team of 7 people with various skill levels. It also leaves enough time for testing, documentation and deployment :-)


    2share!2flame...

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: note [id://620724]
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others musing on the Monastery: (7)
As of 2024-04-23 12:24 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found