Years ago, I was given training in an estimating technique called Function Point Analysis (yes, yet another estimating technique). You broke the task down into

Years ago, I was given training in an estimating technique called Function Point Analysis (yes, yet another estimating technique). You broke the task down into (I think) five elementary components: inputs, outputs, processes, inter-process exchanges, something. You rated each component out of 5 for difficulty. Each type of component has a weight, so you can get a sum of the weighted scores of the components, apply some kind of fiddle-function to the sum, and that's your function-point count. You can then use intrusive management to measure the function-point output of each developer per day, so that after some months, you can make accurate estimates. Because the task estimate is denominated in function-points, not days, you can use the FPs-per-day rates of individuals or teams to estimate the elapsed time for a task. I tried to use it a few times. What I learned is that it's not possible to make accurate estimates. Actually, that was one of the observations of the FPA training: that you are supposed to keep on doing it all through a project. Well, you really needed a whole corporation to commit to supporting something like that. I'm not surprised it was no use to me.