Applicability of Techniques in This Chapter | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
The Basic Schedule Equation | Informal Comparison to Past Projects | Jones's First-Order Estimation Practice | Estimation Software Tools | |
What's Estimated | Schedule | Schedule | Schedule | Schedule |
Size of project | - M L | S M L | - M L | - M L |
Development stage | Early | Early | Early | Early |
Iterative or sequential | Sequential | Both | Sequential | Both |
Accuracy possible | Medium | Medium | Low | High |
The need to meet customer deadlines, trade show deadlines, seasonal sales-cycle deadlines, regulatory deadlines, and other calendar-oriented deadlines seems to put much of the estimation pressure on the schedule. The schedule estimate seems to produce most of the heat in estimation discussions.
Ironically, once you move from intuitive estimation approaches to approaches based on historical data, the schedule estimate becomes a simple computation that flows from the size and effort estimates. If T.S. Eliot had written poems about software, he might have written
This is the way the estimate ends
This is the way the estimate ends
This is the way the estimate ends
Not with a bang but a whimper