3 ms·
Developer to self: "It'll take me about a week" Developer to development lead: "It'll take about two weeks" Development lead to project manager: "It'll take a
by andrewstuart 7y ago
Developer to self: "It'll take me about a week"
Developer to development lead: "It'll take about two weeks"
Development lead to project manager: "It'll take about 4 weeks"
Project manager to self: "It'll take double that plus 2 weeks"
Project manager to management: "It'll take 12 weeks"
Management to client: "It'll take 8 weeks"
Actual time taken: 16 weeks.
- riantogo 7y agoClient: Wow, this is the first project that took only 2x time. We usually anticipate 4x.
- andrewstuart 7y ago>> We usually anticipate 4x. All software estimation boils down to the long established scientific methodology: (2 X what the last person said) optionally plus 2 weeks
- alttag 7y agoYears ago I worked with a developer who had a different methodology: 2x, then bump the unit of measure. Thus, 1 day -> 2 weeks; 2 weeks -> 4 months. It's been remarkably accurate over the past couple of decades.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoMine is to multiply by five. It’s pretty accurate.
- eberkund 7y ago8 weeks => 16 months, 2 months => 4 years ??? Doesn't seem consistent
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago> 2 months => 4 years It's consistently correct.
- marcosdumay 7y agoExcept if you are in sales. If so it's 1/2 of what the last person said, or optionally 2 weeks.
- proverbialbunny 7y agoIsn't it common for sales people to intentionally give a longer time frame than management specifies? I believe they try to buffer 20%+ rounding, unless there is an exact public release date. Though, I'm not in sales so I could be completely wrong. In the consulting world there is the rule of three, where you multiply everything by three, not just how long it will take.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIME, sales people usually change the estimates to much lower than those reported to them, leading to no end of frustration and overtime on the engineering side.