Effective Software Project Management

Estimation Precision

A word of advice on estimating is in order. Early estimates of task duration will not be as good as later estimates. It’s a simple fact that you get smarter as the project work commences. Estimates will always be subject to the vagaries of nature and other unforeseen events. You can only hope that you have gained some knowledge through the project to improve your estimates.

In the top-down project planning model, you start out with “roughly right” estimates with the intention of improving the precision of these estimates later in the project. Management and the customer must be made aware that this is your approach. Give up the habit of assuming that a number, once written, is inviolate and absolutely correct regardless of the circumstances under which the number was determined.