Here's one way: double the estimate and then cut the scope in half.
Engineer's Savings Time: triple the time estimate.
Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#32Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#33The thing that helped me the most personally with my estimate accuracy is estimating times beforehand, and then tracking the actual time and evaluating the accuracy of my own estimates. This is partly to get out of the mindset of trying to explain why past estimates were over/under and focus on being more accurate in the future.
It's funny, we've got the ability to do that at work, we track our time in 15 minute blocks and break each task down.
As an agency (maybe it's the same everywhere), I think there is wild external and internal pressure against giving accurate estimates.
When you get in the room with the project managers and the sales people, you can see their eyes rolling as the costs escalate.
"How long is implementing Google analytics going to take?" Maybe 3 days? "3 days really? That seems high, can we write in 2 days there?" Well we can, but it's still going to take the same amount of time.
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or the other standby: take the dev estimate, double it, and increase the order of magnitude: Dev Estimate Quote ------------ ----------------- 2 hours 4 days 1 day 2 weeks etc...
There's only one problem with that rule: This is not done to dev estimates, but to the estimate of the next lower level of management. If your project has 5 levels of management before all participants are under one umbrella, team estimates in days will lead to a project taking years. Claiming that the organization is flat is no cheat though: Create phantom managers so that ever 6 people have a manager, and those man…
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Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#35The thing that helped me the most personally with my estimate accuracy is estimating times beforehand, and then tracking the actual time and evaluating the accuracy of my own estimates. This is partly to get out of the mindset of trying to explain why past estimates were over/under and focus on being more accurate in the future.
Did it help? How often did you end up repeating the same task? (Personally, I have this feeling that my tasks tend to be varied enough that 'number of times done' would almost always == 1, however, I don't have any actual data to back that assertion up. (And maybe you used this to hone in on the "true hour cost of a 2 story point task"???)
Surely you're getting the sense of the patterns of things you're doing.
Maybe something like "that's probably 3 loops and an email"
That's a couple hours for the loops... A couple more for the email, assuming HTML has to be dynamic based on a model with 5 values... Etc...
Sure it's not identical every time, but the patterns are the same.
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#36Here's one way: double the estimate and then cut the scope in half.
Or the other standby: take the dev estimate, double it, and increase the order of magnitude: Dev Estimate Quote ------------ ----------------- 2 hours 4 days 1 day 2 weeks etc...
Hah, this was a running a joke at my last place of work ('Double it, change the units') where we were developing for clients and so were often publishing estimates externally.
More recently they moved into the world of science and actually fed back the results of previous estimates into the estimation process, to try and address systematic mis-estimation. Yes, each estimate may not be right, but it's surprising how if you average them out you can get them pretty close.
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#37Here's one way: double the estimate and then cut the scope in half.
Or the other standby: take the dev estimate, double it, and increase the order of magnitude: Dev Estimate Quote ------------ ----------------- 2 hours 4 days 1 day 2 weeks etc...
I used to suggest this method of estimating at my previous job. People thought I was crazy. I was right every single time.
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#38Here's one way: double the estimate and then cut the scope in half.
Or the other standby: take the dev estimate, double it, and increase the order of magnitude: Dev Estimate Quote ------------ ----------------- 2 hours 4 days 1 day 2 weeks etc...
It surprises me how well this worked every time I applied it.
It stops working very well when you get to months and years planning however :(
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#39This classic is still relevant today:
"Evidence Based Scheduling" by Joel Spolsky
Re: Show HN: I built a free app to help devs create more accurate software estimates
#40Please, please, please remove the background music -- it's annoying and overly loud.
The product looks very interesting, and it's nice that you offer a free tier. I'd hate to see your pitch hampered by the music.