I estimate 60 man hours.
Posted on 04/09/2014 5:11:04 PM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
Q&A? A REMF?
I estimate 60 man hours.
Only when management forces us to be by worshiping bug count as the ultimate metric. When things are going right programmers and QA (no &) are the dev team working together to ship a good product in a timely manner.
You mean, they're standing in a room with some of the smartest people on the planet? Because I've known more than a few developers... ahem.
Are you saying they are stupid, or just act funny?
As for teacher’s I’ve met a few and Ahhem
Agreed, I’ve been developing software for 30+ years now, and the simple fact of why software estimation is wrong is boils down to the following:
Manager asks, how long to do this? (some nebulous thing)
Developer: I don’t know, you aren’t really giving me a real firm idea of what you want, there is this to consider, and that, there is too much unknown to give you a meaningful estimate.
Manager: Okay, I won’t hold you to it, but could you ballpark it for me?
Developer: No like I said, I don’t know this, or that, you don’t even really have an idea of what you want, or any investigation into the details etc etc.
Manager: Okay, well lets just assume we are (blather whitewash of any concerns about what is being asked for) how long do you think it would take?
Developer: Well I don’t know, maybe X amount of time, if we stick to every assumption you just made and we don’t find out any gotcha’s when we dig into the details, and everything goes right... Honestly I’d say you better go at least 2X - 3X Minimal.
Manager: Okay
Later that day
Manager’s Manager: How long will it take you to do that thing we talked about?
Manager: Well I talked to the developer and they say they can do it in X.
Manager’s Manager: That’s too long, all we are asking for is this simple thing it can’t be that much... You have 1/3X to get it done.
Manager: Okay.
next Day:
Manager: You have 1/3X to get this done
Developer: I told you at best you are looking at X and in reality likely 2-3X to do that.
Manager: Well, you’re the best guy we have, so I know you can do it in 1/3X.
1/3X time later:
Manager: Is that done?
Developer: Nope, I told you it would take X in perfect case, and reality is once we dug in we found all this stuff that was unknown, and you changed the scope on us 6 times since we started... So no its not done. In fact its not even 1/3 of the way done.
Manager: Well when will it be done
Developer: At this point it looks like it will be 3-4X before its done?
Manager: What? How can you fail so miserably
Developer: I didn’t, I told you flat out this could not be done in that time frame, you refused to listen.
Later that day:
Manager’s Manager: Is that done?
Manager: No
Manager’s Manager: Why not? You said you could have it done in 1/3X.. when will it be done?
Manager: Well I spoke to the developer earlier today and they promise me they can do it in X.
Managers Manager: What the hell you told me you could do it in 1/3x, not you are telling me it will take X what the hell is wrong
Manager: Well the developer underestimated the amount of work, and didn’t take into account (insert inanity here)..
Manager’s manager: Well get them working overtime this needs done. Damn developers suck at estimating.
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