Posted on October - 13 - 2008
How to Best Use Software Estimation – Part 1
It's the one in the lower corner
There’s a running gag between myself and a few of my friends and associates – if possible, how much information would you cede over to software estimation? Theoretically, software that was smart enough, and fed enough information could serve as a nice expert opinion, specifically when involved in an argument with a significant other. After all, it’s hard to refute a computer that gives a quantifiable reason against turning the television away from the game, or not wearing that specific tie. Granted, the battle between spouse and computer would be settled quickly (with the edge going to the spouse), but the comic examples do serve an actual purpose – the first rule of software estimation is you need to know what you’re estimating.
As good as software estimation is (and it can be really good), you need to know what you wish to estimate before you start feeding in data. To that end, it helps to establish an estimate scope, purpose, and starting point for your estimate.
The first part, the purpose, is perhaps the most important. What do you wish your estimation to do? The more specific you are in your purpose, the better prepared you’ll be when you move through the process and more useful the estimate will be. Scope’s pretty important. That’s the general goal of your estimate – will this estimate be the completion of your project, or will the estimate impact how your project proceeds? And finally, before you even begin your estimate, you need to establish your base points of contact. This is the general areas where you’ll be culling your data from.
It takes a while to really get the hang of these three areas, but they’re important for creating the foundation of a solid estimate. Once you’ve got them down, your estimates can work better for you, and maybe, just maybe, you can software estimation to settle household disputes and convince the significant other that watching the game is the best decision possible.
