I'm developing a back-end application for a search system. The search system copies files to a temporary directory and gives them random names. Then it passes the temporary files' names to my application. My application must process each file within a limited period of time, otherwise it is shut down - that's a watchdog-like security mea...
As of now I have done effort estimation based on experience and recently using function points. I am now exploring UCP, read this article http://www.codeproject.com/KB/architecture/usecasep.aspx. I then checked various other articles based on Use Case Points (UCP). I am not able to find out how exactly it works and is it correct. For e...
When giving a time estimate for a project that includes work in areas you don't have experience with how do you estimate? In most cases it is hard enough to get the estimate right when the project's areas are familiar. What methods have you used in these cases? How well did they work? ...
Possible Duplicates: How to create an accurate hour estimate? Dealing with awful estimates There are many estimation techniques. From formal ones like Cocomo and Function Points, less formal ones like Story/Feature points, to even less formal like "Toss some dice". Which method you find most useful or most effective? Why? Wh...
How do convert effort estimate say in function points to a specific web framework like django? Or is effort estimation solely dependent on the architecture of the web framework? ANy hints or guidelines would help. EDIT would you be restrictive in thinking say, this is my framework, say django, and let me think in terms of converting my...
I have an application I would like built. For the most part, I know what I want. And, I have good sketches of how it should work and look. I would like to understand how to estimate the cost to implement an application. I would like to do this prior to approaching developers so that I can make sure I can afford to fund the development m...
There has been quite a bit of discussion about how to apply specific estimation techniques, or which estimation method is better than others. But it's hard to get a sense of which estimation practices people actually use. What I am interested in is an informal poll of what types of estimation techniques people typically use. Please ad...
When estimating tasks, how does one break from the grip of Hofstadter's law? ...
In my company management is looking for screen-pumping-machine/production-line-factory for data centric (form entry) windows apps. And I am for the task to build the tool that should automate the estimations given the technical requirements. I am trying to build a formula to estimate time to build SCSF-CAB apps. Since the break-down ac...
Ok, I'm a lowly developer just minding my own business. Suddenly, I'm thrust into the crazy situation where I'm being handed a piece of paper, consisting of hastily written point notes from a client meeting. From this, I'm supposed to estimate development time on a short software project (3 - 6 weeks). The notes range from fairly useful...
I'm currently estimating a new project. My high level estimate assuming there was one developer working on it is 25 weeks. In reality there will be two developers working in parallel. What factor would be reasonable to reduce the estimate by? (I realise that it will not be 0.5) ...
When working on an agile development project, how do you incorporate into the estimation of time for user stories/use cases/etc. the time it takes to train new developers on unfamiliar technology being used by the project?? How do other managers handle this? Of course, my question assumes that one has deemed the technology in question ...
Inspired by this xckd cartoon I wondered exactly what is the best mechanism to provide an estimate to the user of a file copy / movement? The alt tag on xkcd reads as follows: They could say "the connection is probably lost," but it's more fun to do naive time-averaging to give you hope that if you wait around for 1,163 hours, it ...
I'm attempting to estimate the number or testers required to test out a project. One method is to determine the number of scripts that will be required and was wondering if there was a rule of thumb for number of scripts as compare to number of requirements. I'm estimating 2 - 3. 1 for a sunny day type test 1 for a negative test 1 for...
I was in a meeting today with a consultant (consulting us on internal procedures) and we went through an exercise of planning out the next three months of development. I'm not opposed at all to doing this, I think it is essential to have an understanding of what is coming next, in what order, and their relative magnitudes. I also think i...
I am looking for a method to decide on the price for a J2EE project that we developed. I know of COCOMO model but dont know if there are any tools/plugins (preferably on eclipse) to calculate the cost. A very naive method of deciding the cost of development would be to associate a price to every Kilo Line of Code. If this is right, how m...
What is the good resolution of time to use for estimating duration of your tasks? is it like 0.5, 1, 2, 5 days or should you go down to hours like 0.5, 1, 2, 4 hours and then continue up to days? should a change to a label text be task at all? ( ETA < 1min ) Suggestions? ...
We started a project that will be managed with Scrum/XP. We wrote the whole product backlog upfront for evaluation purposes. We're making sure all stories are customer-centric and we're evaluating them by story business value: MoSCoW technique - Must, should, could, would/won't have this implemented story effort/complexity (= story poi...
When planning a 2-week iteration in the past I have taken a user story: Story: Rename a file And broken it into tasks which were then estimated in hours: Story: Rename a file Task: Create Rename command (2h) Task: Maintain a list of selected files (3h) Task: Hook up to F2 key (1h) Task: Add context menu option (1h) I would then...
I am a PHP developer, and I often have no idea in terms of days--let alone hours--how long something will take me at work. I am often writing new stuff, merging it with old legacy crap. I can tell my boss what week I will likely have something done--and maybe what half of what week--but I how in the world am I to know specifically what d...