Saravanan’s musings and scribbles

Though there are lots of estimation models available for software development processes, I use the following easy (basic) approach to do a quick estimate.

1. Break down the requirements into tasks and sub tasks.

2. A small defect or enhancement will be a task and can be broken down as sub-tasks.

3. For every task/sub-task, do an optimistic estimate for design, coding, unit testing, integration testing etc based on the team’s average productivity.

4. Based on the team’s productivity, adjust this factor. Remember that the estimate we get for the first time is always optimistic and the work cannot be completed by that time due to unplanned activities cropping up.

If your team is good and experienced, you can increase the estimate to the maximum of 50%. This 50% increase is required to take care of design documentation, integration testing etc. Most of the developers when asked for estimation will skip this part and give estimate only for coding.

If the team is new and less experienced, you can increase the optimistic estimate by 75% to 125%. This increase is required to ramp them up along with the time required for tasks mentioned above.

Always remember, more the number of sub tasks, better the estimation quality.