RE: Techniques for Estimating Time

["Earl Cooley" <shiva -at- io -dot- com>]

Anthony V. Colello wrote: 
> Can anyone comment in detail on the technique(s) you
> use to give the most accurate estimate possible and
> any possible caveats you warn your clients of?

Back in ancient times (before Object Oriented Programming, 
that is) I remember there was a method for estimating time 
for programming projects that might be analogous to just about 
any kind of project: you subdivided the project into logical 
chunks, and gave each chunk a non-parametric rank based on its 
complexity. Each rank had a number value associated with it 
(it wasn't a linear scale) and you added all the numbers together. 
Some categories had extra multipliers, too. What you got was 
theoretical man-hours. It wasn't anywhere near exact, but you 
could at least compare the complexity of different projects 
based on past performance to get a better idea of how long 
things would take. I wish I had more details on that.

--
 e=sc^3 (shiva -at- io -dot- com) Earl Cooley III


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