3 ms·
Not just bureaucrats. People generally -- it's the Planning Fallacy. If you ask someone how long something will take, they tend to give roughly the same answer
by lkbm 7y ago
Not just bureaucrats. People generally -- it's the Planning Fallacy.
If you ask someone how long something will take, they tend to give roughly the same answer as if you asked how long it will take in the best case scenario. Estimating project time is hard, and people are bad at it in general.
The best method seems to be to instead ask "How long did the most similar project you've done take?" but that does require the estimator to have done a somewhat comparable project.
- bluejekyll 7y agoHofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
- lancesells 7y agoI typically double my estimate for how long something will take me both in personal and work-related projects. This allows for all manner of unknowns to happen and seems to be more realistic.
- Balgair 7y agoFor me and with projects that I have worked on, I take the estimate, double it, and then move it up a time unit. So 1 day becomes 2 weeks. 3 weeks becomes 6 months. 1 hour becomes 2 days. 1 year becomes 2 decades. Is this overkill? Oh heck yes. But it seems to really put a fire into me to make sure that these things run smoother.
- brlewis 7y agoThis is not always overkill. In fact it's sometimes insufficient. Breaking down a project into tasks and doing the math is the only hope for any semblance of accuracy, and even that doesn't always work.