O

objective criteria, insisting on, 268

objective, estimation software as, 160–162

off-the-cuff estimates, 31, 49–51. See also expert judgment

comparing to actuals, 110–106

insisting on objective criteria, 268

omitting activities when estimating, 44–46

on-time completion, likelihood of, 22. See also completion progress

opinion of experts. See expert judgment

optimism, unfounded, 46, 119

organizational influences, accounting for, 92

outcomes

Chaos Report (Standish Group), 24

diseconomies of scale, 56–61, 70

effort estimates, 208

modeling after historical data, 99

software to account for, 160

when unimportant, 60

kind of software (industry differences), 61, 236

nominal, defined, 8

organizational influences on, 92

personnel factors, 63

probabilistic, 6–9

programming languages and, 64–65

project size and. See project size

simulating, 157

overestimation, advantages of, 21–24

overlooked responsibilities, 44–46, 110

overtime effort, compensating for, 241

ownership of schedules, 268