
A Review of Studies on Expert Estimation of Software Development Effort - njrc
http://simula.no/research/engineering/publications/SE.4.Joergensen.2004.c
======
gruseom
I used to obtain reasonable estimates like this: get everyone involved
together and make a big list of things that need to be done. Everyone
independently writes down how hard each thing seems (usually on a relative
scale like 1 thru 5). Put the estimates in a spreadsheet and project it onto a
wall. For any item where there's significant variance, argue about it until
the variance dies down, or break the thing up into smaller tasks and re-
estimate. Then take the mean of the estimates for each item. We'd insist on
everyone playing along, even if they didn't know very much. The more data
points the better.

Nowadays, though, I use the much better algorithm "it's done when it's done".
It goes well with the software process, "program our asses off".

