ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
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ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
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Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#2I always like Avery's "Software Engineer Simulator":
https://apenwarr.ca/log/20171213 (on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15912929)
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#3In my experience, the hardest part of estimating how long a project will take is estimating how much time things OUTSIDE of the project itself will take. How much time will be spent maintaining other projects? How much time will be spent helping other teams on things they need? How much time will be spent on random other things?
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#4We did a process like this at a job once; it came back with an "estimate" of 240 developer-weeks, so the next question from management was "so we can have the feature in six months if we put ten people on it?"
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#5We did a process like this at a job once; it came back with an "estimate" of 240 developer-weeks, so the next question from management was "so we can have the feature in six months if we put ten people on it?"
The usual joke: Respond by giving your mangler (and maybe his mangler) two copies of The Mythical Man-Month.
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#6In my experience, the hardest part of estimating how long a project will take is estimating how much time things OUTSIDE of the project itself will take. How much time will be spent maintaining other projects? How much time will be spent helping other teams on things they need? How much time will be spent on random other things?
Determining the Critical Path, the sequence of events that must happen from Start to Finish, is the next critical step. This conversation pours cold water on the Mythical Man month. (If the manager 'gets it)
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#7We did a process like this at a job once; it came back with an "estimate" of 240 developer-weeks, so the next question from management was "so we can have the feature in six months if we put ten people on it?"
The usual joke: Respond by giving your mangler (and maybe his mangler) two copies of The Mythical Man-Month .
I haven't read it but from what is commonly quoted it is about "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."
So the assumption of bringing n people to work on a projects increasing the productivity n-fold doesn't seem totally absurd when they are working on the project from the beginning. It might not be exactly n but (n-m) due to increased management, communication etc. So we might discuss how big is m? Still there should be some increase in productivity because that's essentially how huge projects work.
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The usual joke: Respond by giving your mangler (and maybe his mangler) two copies of The Mythical Man-Month .
I haven't read it but from what is commonly quoted it is about "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." So the assumption of bringing n people to work on a projects increasing the productivity n-fold doesn't seem totally absurd when they are working on the project from the beginning. It might not be exactly n but (n-m) due to increased management, communication etc. So we might discuss how big is…
The other often repeated quote is about pregnancy.
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't read it but from what is commonly quoted it is about "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." So the assumption of bringing n people to work on a projects increasing the productivity n-fold doesn't seem totally absurd when they are working on the project from the beginning. It might not be exactly n but (n-m) due to increased management, communication etc. So we might discuss how big is…
The other often repeated quote is about pregnancy.
Yeah but software is not a baby and software can very well have modules and APIs.
Re: ROM Auctioneering; Accurately estimate complex projects in one hour
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
The usual joke: Respond by giving your mangler (and maybe his mangler) two copies of The Mythical Man-Month .
I haven't read it but from what is commonly quoted it is about "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." So the assumption of bringing n people to work on a projects increasing the productivity n-fold doesn't seem totally absurd when they are working on the project from the beginning. It might not be exactly n but (n-m) due to increased management, communication etc. So we might discuss how big is…
It's worth a read, if just to consider that many of the observations made in the industry during the 70's hold true today. Wikipedia has a summary of the book[1].