4 ms·
I was always way under with my estimates. One day I was talking to some senior dev at another company and he said that he got better by multiplying his estimate
by ElCapitanMarkla 9y ago
I was always way under with my estimates. One day I was talking to some senior dev at another company and he said that he got better by multiplying his estimates by 3.
So I gave that a go, I'd do my estimates in one column then multiply them by 3 in the next column. At first I thought that those x3 estimates were way too high but 90% of the time they were about right, maybe a little over but it's usually better to be over than under.
After a while I just started landing on those x3 estimates without it being an extra step, I've been not bad on the estimation side of things since doing that little trick.
- UK-AL 9y agoThere's probably a litte bit of Parkinson's law in there.
- ToJans 9y agoI always use factor 3. I just think: based on what I know now, how long would it probably take to write it - optimistic -? Multiplying this by 3 is justified by the unknown unknows, bugfixing, communication, changing scope and assuming stuff is more simple than it actually is. Works like a charm for me in most cases. For problems where the solution is still unknown, I tend to break it up in small cycles, with a best-case estimate. At the end of every cycle we adjust and align, so that the customer can decide for himself whether to proceed, restart or abort.
- arethuza 9y ago"Multiply by π for small, known teams, doing a new job, by π^2 for unknown teams, and √π for known teams who have already started, know their work and have a good track record." http://alistair.cockburn.us/The+magic+of+pi+for+project+managers http://alistair.cockburn.us/The+magic+of+pi+for+project+mana...
- p0nce 9y agoI use π for new kinds of projects and the golden ratio φ for well known types of projects. (edit: however, the only purpose of an estimate might be to go faster, so perhaps it's better to have an unrealistic one)
- PeterisP 9y ago3 is rather arbitrary, we use Pi as the coefficient instead.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI have found that if I ask some people for a quick estimate and multiply by 5, the estimate will be pretty close.