Software Estimation BlogInformation on Cost Estimation & Software Estimating

There are two types of Project Managers out there, those who get estimation software, and those who think it’s a magical box which turns hard working developers into robots. Here’s a list of the most cruel and unusual questions posed by the latter.

5. Two hours of sleep is plenty, right?

4. How much will productivity increase if we institute a “2 Devs Enter, 1 Dev Leaves” policy?

3. How much does the cost for desk shackles affect our bottom line?

2. Yes, but what if we had a thousand monkeys?

1. Great, now how do we finish the project with half the people in half the time for twice the money?

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So, you’ve checked over all of your initial data, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. You’ve double checked with the client and you know exactly what they think that they want. And you’ve plugged all of that carefully measured data into your software estimation program of choice and hit the enter key.

Congratulations and welcome to the baseline!

You’re now at the moment where if nothing changes (they will) and everything goes according to plan (they won’t), this is exact estimate of cost, team-size, and time relating to your project.

It’s a sound idea to take a good look at the baseline estimate before releasing it either internally or to the client on the offhand chance that there was an actual mistake on the initial data collection. If you’ve worked on similar projects before, and you have previous baseline estimates, these can be helpful for a quick comparison.

If everything appears to be in order, then the fun begins – the collection of “What if”s that can skillfully whittle down a baseline estimate into a lean, productive, completed project that lands under-budget and ahead of time.

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