Our project manager usually consult developers how many hours they need to implement some functionality asked by client. Is this consistent with the principles of management? Do you or your project managers do the same? ...
I find it kinda funny that if you are asked how long you would estimate to perform a specific task, your answer is always the amount of time you have to finish the task – maybe with 1-2 additional days. Does anyone else experience this? Furthermore, why is the pressure always on the developer? Yes, he gave a false estimation, which can...
When working on a project - I always estimate my tasks and calculate how long it will take me to finish. So in the end I get a time-span in which the project should be finished (it rarely is). My question is - do you record your data and assumptions use in your estimates during a project and use them for later projects or refined estima...
Due to a discussion on the SO IRC today, I'm curious about orbital mechanics, and The equations needed to solve orbital problems The computing power required to solve complex problems The question in particular is calculating when the Earth will plow into the Sun (or vice versa, depending on the frame of reference). I suspect that a...
It seems that no matter what my project is, I get through 80% of the work fairly fast. Users and management get excited thinking things are way ahead of schedule, but the pesky 20% of work remaining seems to take 4 times as long as the previous 80%. When we have our regular check ins or stand ups on the project, I feel like a broken re...
I've just come from a discussion about who is best placed to give estimates on a given piece of work. At a detailed level I'd always say that the best estimate comes from the person who actually has to do the work as they have the full understanding and this gives them complete buy-in to the , however at a higher level of abstraction (i...
What I'm looking for is very simple: I want a tool that computes the calculated, as opposed to estimated based on confidence intervals, shipping date given a list of tasks with total estimates and current progress each without introducing further uncertainty as I want to handle that externally. I want it to take workdays duration and us...
I was asked to make a clone of this: http://www.bragster.com/ ok, not a clone per se, but a site with similar functionality on a lower budget! How low might one ask? Under 10K, probably under 5K. My question: how do i explain to a non-tech savvy friend, that this is not possible, in the nicest terms, and convince them not to go to ren...
It seems like it is nearly impossible to get close because you could run into any number of issues and things not first anticipated. How close can we be expected to reasonably estimate? Our PM wants to be able to have things like Gant charts and such mapping out weeks at a time and such... So we say we can get these bugs done, and this i...
My current job has somewhat of a more structured methodology than I'm used to and I'm asked to write detailed task lists and estimations before working on a block of functionality. For some reason, I have an awfully hard time doing these and I spend a lot of energy fighting my resistance to these tasks instead of just doing them. It's ...
Some background first, but my question is of a general nature, really. A prospect client has contacted me about a new website for their business. What they need is a fairly complex job-board type of project with user accounts for employers and candidates, some advertising, forums, CMS features (for articles), CC/PayPal payments (subscri...
I was involved in a discussion at work about which software systems various people had built were the biggest; biggest in this case being a combination of system complexity and implementation difficulty. Since experienced programmers tend to get a gut feel for a project's size, even if they wouldn't put it in writing, I thought I'd pose...
I know I am not the only one who does not like progress bars or time estimates which give unrealistic estimates in software. Best examples are installers which jump from 0% to 90% in 10 seconds and then take an hour to complete the final 10%. Most of the time programmers just estimate the steps to complete a task and then display curren...
Hi I read in a mythical man month that integration takes 3 times the amount of time it took to develop the individual components. What has you guys experienced? ...
Background My team current is currently in the "bug fixing and polishing" phase of shipping a major rewrite. We still have a large stack of bugs to fix, scheduled against a couple of milestones. We've been asked to come up with estimates, of how much engineering effort is required to fix the bugs for each milestone. For previous miles...
Hello, I know this is probably the nth project management question. But am trying to move my team onto a more robust project management technique. Am wondering what is the best technique to use? I know that probably no technique is best, but which are the most popular techniques? Poker planning? Evidence Based Scheduling? COCOMO? Agile?...
Have you ever worked on a development of a product which took a long time to release to public( at most 2 years)?.And, you were working on the same project for the whole time.How did you keep yourself motivated? And, I wonder should delivering a product take such a long time? There are others who have this philosophy- get the product out...
I'm going to be going to be meeting with a number of programmers and custom software companies to get bids on creating a website for a company that I'm involved with. My question is this: What should I prepare for the programmers so that they can give me an accurate bid, timetable, etc. for the development of the website? I have a clear ...
I know there are several estimating questions here, and I have read through most of them, but this one is slightly different. If you're doing a refresh on a Web site, it might include usability enhancements that increase the hours for page production and development. We'll never look at a Web site and say to ourselves the way it is now i...
My company requires that we achieve our estimates to within 30% of forecast. Typically, clients (any my business is no different) expect that they'll get their product as soon as possible for the lowest cost ("I want all the features delivered yesterday for free"). As part of my team's development iterations, we are required to estimate...