[thelist] How do you estimate time for any given project?

[Les Lytollis]

At my last place of work, to get a rough estimate of development work,
they take the elaboration as a third of the time to complete the entire
project. That means initial investigation, requirements capture,
specifications and initial A&D - it seems to work out as roughly correct
*most* of the time - of course, if you have to estimate the time to do
elaboration, that doesn't really help;)

I've been using some of the guidelines from http://www.volere.co.uk/
which is a good site for requirements process. 

Also remember to take into account any learning curves involved for the
development team eg new technologies, legacy integration, new tools,
etc.,

I'd also add my +1 to the previous post regarding well-defined
requirements - get a set of requirements defined and signed off - phase
the development if necessary - get the customer / client to prioritise
what goes in to each phase subject to obvious dependencies of each
component. 

...and if all that doesn't work - take a rough guess and move it up to
the next unit of time - 10 hours -> 10 days, 4 weeks -> 4 months  - not
as outrageous as you might think ;)

regards
Les Lytollis
Web Developer
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Smith [mailto:rob.smith at THERMON.com] 

>How do you estimate time for any given project?



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