Hacker News Reader

Comment by rzzzt | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any suggestions for becoming more accurate when it comes to estimating effort?

I find that my estimates are generally all over the place and multiple attempts at predicting how much time it will take to complete an assignment don't converge as time passes. Even though I had seen and been given diverse tasks over the course of my work, I can not really pick a previous item of similar magnitude for reference.

View on HN

I'm a chronic under-estimator. So, whenever we're in grooming or sprint planning, I make it a habit to ask the other members of the team if the size/hours make sense, or are straight out of "Al's world".

In those occasions where I'm asked to provide a WAG to an executive or salesperson, I always multiply my first thought by 150-200%. Maybe even 300% if there's an external stakeholder (3rd party integration, something for a specific client, etc).

I've found that https://www.amazon.com/Software-Estimation-Demystifying-Deve... is a fantastic resource for improving estimation.

I'm not terribly good at this, but I've had some luck taking the first answer that pops to mind and multiplying it by three. It's a crude method, but over time, it has worked well for me.

This usually works OK in practice for small or medium projects, but as Brooks points out in the Mythical Man Month, you are also tripling your estimation error. This can cause a lot of divergence for longer projects.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com