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Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

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Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#61

Post by ghotli »

At least when I was younger I was so perplexed by the kind of co-workers that have apparently chosen the profession of working with estimates from other people but continually work without a "confidence level" associated with each estimate.

("two weeks") means such a different thing in reality from ("two weeks", "confidence of 50%").

It's a tuple, it's always been a tuple, it's just downright silly to accept an estimate without the second half of the information. Like what diviniation is going on in that spreadsheet to communicate to others when it doesn't include half the meaningful information to begin with.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#62

Post by palidanx »

mikeryan wrote: post #43
awb wrote: post #6

Ran a successful digital agency for years. Estimation was mostly guesswork. There’s a theory that work expands to fill the time you give it and I found that to be largely true. Other agencies would quote 3 months for projects we’d complete in 6 weeks. Even then I was taking engineers 3 week estimates and doubling them for buffer. We didn’t do anything special other than commit individuals to a single project, or two…

Similar point. I’ve been running an agency for 14 years. All that time we’ve tracked hours for every project whether T&M or fixed bid. Now when a project comes in for bid I always estimate it based on experience but then validate it against one of 250 projects we’ve done that seems “similar” in scope. Since doing that we’ve only been off significantly when we misunderstood the original scope. Tracking hours is a pain…

Yea what you are doing sounds like reference class forecasting (shameless plug, a blog post I wrote about it)

https://www.dquach.com/2023/04/21/reference-class-forecastin...

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#63

Post by ehnto »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #36
vletal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are building Sydney Opera Houses. Sorry, this made me laugh. I know there are software engineers which build clean and polished beautiful mega structures. I _aspire_ to that. Yet that is a niche market. In reality, most devs are making unique family Vilas at best. I wish I could ever say I feel like I contributed to an equivalent of 'Sydney Opera House'.

Most of us our building prefab housing, but the challenge is there's infinite ways to put the modules together, and unlike real housing no physics to reduce the problem set of possbilities.

And the prefab modules are all from different manufacturers who follow different standards.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#64

Post by masklinn »

ehnto wrote: post #63
skeeter2020 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us our building prefab housing, but the challenge is there's infinite ways to put the modules together, and unlike real housing no physics to reduce the problem set of possbilities.

And the prefab modules are all from different manufacturers who follow different standards.

And some of the hands have a tendency to put electrical between module feet and to try and bond the modules with wood glue.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#65

Post by im_down_w_otp »

pixelrevision wrote: post #59
iopq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “I want to be able to ship something people want to buy, before we run out of money” Buddy, if I knew the answer to the question "something people want to buy" I would be rich already

Spoiler: no one thinks they should have to pay for software these days.

I think a lot about the effect that ad-driven business models and open source must have had on the propensity to spend money on software products. Both in terms of pricing and in terms of build vs. buy. Mostly because I’m always musing about software developers’ hard earned reputation as the cheapest customer demographic on Earth.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#66

Post by senttoschool »

eftychis wrote: post #60
keyle wrote: post #37

It's not fake research. It's actually quite an established science in the 24 years I've been doing it. Take your first guess, double it, double it again if the stakeholder is a poser, add 20% per developer less experience than you, subtract 10% for the features you're going to essentially copy paste, add 15% for sick leave (browsing HN) and then double it for every question you have that are unresolved and divide it…

The real problem is not with estimation but with the management denial. I was asked to estimate a project I owned as a “green” lad. I offered 6 months with a real detailed plan and up to a year with some extras. Based on past rates we had etc. I even did some statistical modeling. They disagreed. They decided to alter the approach, that the principal engineer had suggested and “it would take 2-3 months.” Two years la…

I don't disagree with you but I think people also need to understand that management often pick the team that provides lower estimates because team members will have to work harder to deliver it.

Management might not be so dumb. If someone said 2 months and you say 6 months, they might go with the person who said 2 months but will accept 5 months secretly.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#67

Post by Farox »

keyle wrote: post #37

It's not fake research. It's actually quite an established science in the 24 years I've been doing it. Take your first guess, double it, double it again if the stakeholder is a poser, add 20% per developer less experience than you, subtract 10% for the features you're going to essentially copy paste, add 15% for sick leave (browsing HN) and then double it for every question you have that are unresolved and divide it…

Many, many moons ago I asked my mentor how to estimate. He told me that you should figure out what it feels like, then double it and then take it to the next higher time unit.

"hmm, adding that button probably takes about an hour"... 2 days is about right.

Almost 30 years later I still find this to be true. Truer than I like.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#68

Post by hinkley »

eftychis wrote: post #60
keyle wrote: post #37

It's not fake research. It's actually quite an established science in the 24 years I've been doing it. Take your first guess, double it, double it again if the stakeholder is a poser, add 20% per developer less experience than you, subtract 10% for the features you're going to essentially copy paste, add 15% for sick leave (browsing HN) and then double it for every question you have that are unresolved and divide it…

The real problem is not with estimation but with the management denial. I was asked to estimate a project I owned as a “green” lad. I offered 6 months with a real detailed plan and up to a year with some extras. Based on past rates we had etc. I even did some statistical modeling. They disagreed. They decided to alter the approach, that the principal engineer had suggested and “it would take 2-3 months.” Two years la…

The tell is that as soon as they don’t like how things are going they flip from calling them estimates to commitments.

Also if someone’s estimates aren’t perfect, that’s something you can use to justify withholding salary. The game is fixed. It’s just a good deal less fixed for us than for the average person.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#69

Post by pyrale »

danielvaughn wrote: post #23

I feel like the core problem here is one that can never be resolved, because it's the result of two valid but opposing forces. On one hand you have business stakeholders, who can see the business reality - money doesn't grow on trees and runways are very real and scary, so without deadlines companies fundamentally cannot function. On the other hand you have engineers, who either explicitly or implicitly understand th…

> money doesn't grow on trees and runways are very real and scary, so without deadlines companies fundamentally cannot function.

That's a non-sequitur. there are plenty of ways to run a project under a budget that don't involve deadlines.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research (2021)

#70

Post by hinkley »

senttoschool wrote: post #66
eftychis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is not with estimation but with the management denial. I was asked to estimate a project I owned as a “green” lad. I offered 6 months with a real detailed plan and up to a year with some extras. Based on past rates we had etc. I even did some statistical modeling. They disagreed. They decided to alter the approach, that the principal engineer had suggested and “it would take 2-3 months.” Two years la…

I don't disagree with you but I think people also need to understand that management often pick the team that provides lower estimates because team members will have to work harder to deliver it. Management might not be so dumb. If someone said 2 months and you say 6 months, they might go with the person who said 2 months but will accept 5 months secretly.

I think at least a lot of them are rudely surprised.

If it’s a conspiracy not everyone is in on it, at least. There’s more an element of believing your own PR in many cases.

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