You can't estimate a month

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	You can't estimate a month

travislaborde

8-9-2007 8:02 AM

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tags:

programming

travislaborde says:

I'm sitting on exactly this problem right now. My "hours" estimate was about 60, so I figured a month worth of ETA, given that I'm not full-time on the one project....

Of course, in a month's time, a lot of other stuff can come up...

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/b819923a-b548-419d-a048-bda6dc28f8e0/2AA38BB7-FD13-4F8B-92BA-2B52B71068AF/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx" href="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx" style="font-size: 11px;">ayende.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P>
			<A href="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx" title="Title of this entry." class="TitleLinkStyle" id="viewpost_ascx_TitleUrl">You can't estimate a month</A>
		</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P><A href="http://udidahan.weblogs.us/">Udi</A> is talking about <A href="http://udidahan.weblogs.us/2007/08/06/dont-trust-developers-with-project-management/">not trusting a developer's estimate</A>:</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P>Developers don’t know how to estimate. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P>Or more specifically, the variance in the actual completion time of a feature from the estimate given by a developer increases probably exponentially with time. </P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P>For example, if the estimate is a day, you can expect it to be finished in around a day. If the estimate is a week (5 works days), it will probably vary between 4-10 work days. If the estimate is a month, in all actuality the developer probably doesn’t know enough to say but will answer when pressed.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/08/09/You-cant-estimate-a-month.aspx"><P>I agree, but I think that he is taking it in the wrong direction. The problem is that you <EM>can't</EM> estimate a month, or a year. The reason for that is that you have too many variables to juggle, and once you break it down to tasks, even the slightest delay at any of those, spread over a month, can cause significant pain for the schedule.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/2AA38BB7-FD13-4F8B-92BA-2B52B71068AF/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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