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Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

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Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#191

Post by convolvatron »

gugagore wrote: post #169
meheleventyone wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t even have to be a big construction project to hit budget and schedule issues. Rebuilding our house had us going right back to the drawing board having to get new plans drafted and approved. It worked out much better in the end but the unforeseen cost and time overrun was quite anxiety inducing at the time. But yeah the idea anyone has magically solved accurately predicting the future is completely bonkers.

I like to remember "plans are useless but planning is indispensable". The plan is useless because of the challenge of predicting the future. But the planning is useful because trying to predict the future gets you asking good questions.

its more than that. there is a loose correspondence between plan and work. so changes in plans can often be projected onto changes in work. the same goes for expectations and dependencies.

the other thing about the plan is that it attempts to capture what completion might look like. where i come from, the things software developers do right before releasing code look very different than the things they do when they are starting a new project. the plan can allow you to try to do some orchestration, ensure minimum quality bars are met, etc.

having a fuzzy map of the future that you're constantly having to correct sucks. having no map at all leads to the kind of carpe diem development organizations that never seem to finish anything.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#192

Post by quickthrower2 »

didibus wrote: post #107
quickthrower2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the degenerate scenario, but it’s not always true. Often I see this haggling down of estimates and then microagression if estimates are not met but no need to work for free to make up for it. And I’ve also seen wise use of estimation but that is rarer!

> And I’ve also seen wise use of estimation but that is rarer I've got a question for you here, what is a wise use of estimation? What problems are estimates the ideal solution for? In the context of software development? I can think of only two: planning headcount and priorities (aka planning the order in which you do things). When you focus on those problems, you realize there's no need for an accurate estimate. Al…

To get a rough idea of what work can be done in the next X weeks, so that the business can forecast.

The wisdom comes in knowing things can change and it's just an estimate. The process of estimating is quite good as it requires finding out a lot more about how you will solve something, and planning things in advance.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#193

Post by [deleted] »

durandal1 wrote: post #21
jakubp wrote: post #2

If someone can conclusively teach inexperienced programmers good approach to estimates (methodology) + help embed this into sales process of a software house-type company, I know some folks who'd love to have this :) My own experience has been this: people make estimates, client has expectations based on some variant of those, and something later happens but so much change is introduced during the actual software dev…

Apple executes massive feature releases on a yearly waterfall-like schedule across hundreds of teams. It requires honesty, transparency, strong leadership (ruthless prioritization), strong cross-team goodwill, strong cross-team collaboration as well as a solid body of experienced top-tier engineers. Other than that there's no magic. While there are teams within apple that does scrum/agile, none of the core OS/framewo…

[deleted]

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#194

Post by bluGill »

snarf21 wrote: post #98
didibus wrote: post #82

The issue with estimates are expectations. While nobody acknowledges it, you're not actually asked for an estimate, you're being asked for a quote. The difference is when you're asked for a quote, you're asked how much you will be charging, with the expectations that you'll be willing to eat into your own margins to give a lower quote. That's why it's a negotiation, where you negotiate how much extra effort, time and…

The issue is that you are being asked to estimate something that has never been done before. Even houses always go over time and money and that is fairly straight forward. These days, I only give estimates in terms of units but without numbers. Hours, days, weeks, months, quarters or years. Some relatively small number of those units. If you want a quote it will take an extra 1/4 of the estimate worth of time for an…

Houses have been done before. Enough time that we are good at those estimates. Once you have built the same house a dozen times you can estimate to within a couple hundred dollars. Contractors do this all the time for spec houses. Spec meaning that they are building it and the planning to sell it once it is complete. I know several contractors who do this all the time. They have never had someone order a spec house and come in anywhere close to the estimates. Everyone goes over the light fixture budget ($600) by at least $3000. Similar for the kitchen and bath fixtures. It isn't unheard of to double the cost of the house on seemingly minor upgrades.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#195

Post by jVinc »

BowBun wrote: post #100

It's unfortunate that this HN thread has been reduced to the generic discussion about software estimates when the article is specifically talking about research done on the topic of software estimates. According to the article, proper research remains a struggle due to outdated datasets from before modern agile methodologies, and that the modern datasets from industry are hard if not impossible to gather. If industry…

I imagine that if Atlassian could get permission from its many JIRA customers, then doing a text-based ml-categorization of issue descriptions alongside completion times would be extremely interesting.

I'd wager that data is just as poor overall, but the sheer volume of data available might be able to help get some sort of consistent conclusions from them.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#196

Post by danieltillett »

BurningFrog wrote: post #187
koonsolo wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a manager that thought he could negotiate estimates. That is like negotiating with the weatherman about the weather. Sure, maybe in the end you can convince them it will be finished sooner. But the fact is that it really doesn't change reality.

You and I act like weathermen in this situation. But plenty of engineers do estimate based on what they think they can get away with or other negotiable ways.

I used to be a non-technical manager “managing” a team of developers. I later (through circumstances) became a developer. Looking back at the games my team played with me I can see why many managers are cynical about the estimates they are given and attempt to negotiate.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#198

Post by perl4ever »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #71
darkerside wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your base assumption seems to include that quality is valuable for its own sake. I don't totally disagree, but I'm wary of assigning value based on effort rather than output. Depending on why you are buying a car, the Accord is very likely much better bang for the buck than the S-class Mercedes. And depending on the situation, the prototype is often better value than the shippable product.

You are exactly correct. That is why Honda is a bigger company than Mercedes. They do decent quality (Hondas cost more than Kias), but at scale. I worked for a "Mercedes-level" photographic equipment company for years. People were often quite surprised, when I told them the size of the company. It was like Roadhouse "I thought you'd be bigger." Our prototypes were incredibly expensive. A $2,000 (retail) body prototyp…

>That is why Honda is a bigger company than Mercedes

I was curious if this was accurate. Here are some recent numbers for revenue and unit sales:

Honda -> $144B revenue

- 12.4M motorcycles, ATVs, etc.

- 3.3M automobiles

- 5.7M generators, small engines, etc.

Daimler -> $207B revenue

- 2.4M automobiles

- 0.5M trucks

- 0.4M vans

- 0.03M buses

So, Daimler seems to be about 40% larger in revenue, but Honda sells almost 40% more automobiles. But 2.4M automobiles for Daimler seems like it's still comparable in scale.

Honda seems to still be largely a motorcycle and small engine company, in the global picture, while Daimler has a substantial business in heavy duty commercial vehicles including nameplates that aren't necessarily associated with Mercedes by the average person.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#199

Post by perl4ever »

I had access to information about historical projects, so I compared the actual amount of time taken to the estimated time at the beginning, for every software project in the history of my organization.

I found that on average, things take twice as long as expected.

So, I was like, now I know how to estimate any project. I figure out what seems reasonable based on known factors...and double it.

A way to look at this is the "unknown unknowns" of anything empirically average to a 100% overshoot.

But this doesn't fly with the project managers I work with, because they can only see that as illegitimately padding an estimate.

Re: Software effort estimation is mostly fake research

#200

Post by closeparen »

daanlo wrote: post #134
didibus wrote: post #82

The issue with estimates are expectations. While nobody acknowledges it, you're not actually asked for an estimate, you're being asked for a quote. The difference is when you're asked for a quote, you're asked how much you will be charging, with the expectations that you'll be willing to eat into your own margins to give a lower quote. That's why it's a negotiation, where you negotiate how much extra effort, time and…

Software doesn‘t exist in a vacuum. The marketing team needs to know when the landing page / qr code (whatever) is implemented, because they need to plan their marketing budget. The customer care agent that gets shouted at because feature xyz is broken / not working as the customer expects, would like to give the customer an answer when it will be fixed. The customer care manager is also worried about her team member…

I need to know what the stock market is going to do next week. Otherwise, how am I going to become a billionaire? My broker’s refusal to tell me literally costs much more than all the returns he’s ever generated. Who does he think he is?
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