Agile Software Development Blog Sheds Light on Project Estimating
Great post summarizing agile software development estimation methods at Leading Answers. We “user types” can learn a great deal from agile methods as they mirror lean and theory of constraints approaches. Particularly interesting are the group estimation techniques that enable estimates that are more likely to include assumptions and are more likely to result in finishing early vs. padding to hit a later due date. The padding problem obviously results in poor estimating history. This must ring a bell with those of you who have struggled with determining average lead times in manufacturing or project environments! The whole point is truth in estimating and truth in task completion given a more complete set of assumptions at the start.
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POSTED IN: Agile Software Development, Best of the Best Practices
1 opinion for Agile Software Development Blog Sheds Light on Project Estimating
ActiveEngine Sensei
Nov 29, 2007 at 9:48 pm
That’s a great post on LeadingAnswers. Bottom up analysis needs to be completed so that sanity can be brought into the picture. Too many times estimates are handed off with no consideration to whether the information is modeled appropriately, and whether historical data can do all the fancy dances in the new Key Performance Indicator reports.
An older technique that marries the bottom up with the top down is functional decomposition. With this work product program logic and data flow can be quickly discerned.
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