Project Management Stack Exchange
Project Management Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [estimation]

For questions about the estimation of the project's parameters, such as time or cost.

Since the project is a unique activity, its estimation (or the estimation of its components) over time and the cost is quite a difficult task. This tag is for questions about the practices of assessment of their possible accuracy and other aspects of estimation.

380 questions
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How do I stop going over my estimates?

I consistently underestimate my work. I'm gaining a bad reputation for it. I want to get past it. I think the main problem is that I don't fully outline every step that needs to be taken. The first development agency I worked for wasn't big on this.…
Brenden
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7 answers

How can a new PM manage a failing project in a few hours per week?

I am working as a beginning scientist and was given the management role for a small project (5 internal scientists, 1-2 external software contractors). What are the absolute essentials I need to manage this successfully? There are several…
msc
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7 answers

Estimating when the development team won't estimate

I'm new to a situation where a development team refuse to estimate anything until they have a fully defined spec. My angle to obtain estimates is to provide just enough of a spec so they can provide an estimate that has a degree of confidence behind…
Abob
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16
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4 answers

Who pays for learning curve?

Should a client be billed for a certain amount of the learning curve? Should an employer pick up the tab on overhead? Should it be the developer themselves? Or perhaps a combination of all three? I am conflicted on this - I've heard it being said…
ved
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15
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5 answers

How to estimate a project involving unfamiliar skillsets

We are trying to generate an initial estimate to see if a project is viable. The problem is that the project involves configuring and customising an open source product that the development team have no experience with. In fact the customer…
Rob Bird
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15
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5 answers

How to determine how good someone estimates their time?

I am very often in an environment where the employees performing the work are constantly rolling over to new employees and these employees are allowed to estimate on their own how long tasks will take. I have found that the error in their estimates…
Kellenjb
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15
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2 answers

Basis of Estimate

Some consider the BOE the most important part of an estimate. How do you know that, when you write one, you hit the necessary aspects that brings confidence to the reader that the estimate is sound? What makes a quality Basis of Estimate? What…
David Espina
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12
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9 answers

What tools can help me estimate a project length?

I need a way to make fast estimates: For example I'd like to know how long it takes to take a mobile device from nothing to production... let say that a customer wants a IPHONE like product(scope) ... than planing,developing,testing etc... I know…
Asaf
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4 answers

Estimation, Targets, and Performance

Assuming that your team does a great job building its estimates and using a probabilistic approach versus a deterministic approach, and finds that the scope of work will take between 12 to 18 months to complete with their most likely estimate around…
David Espina
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2 answers

How can I estimate a project's costs without well-defined scope, scheduling, and quality inputs?

I work for a private investing firm that is looking to move from a face to face business to online business. They want to create a large, scalable website that can handle thousands of accounts and hundreds of thousands of transactions. They want an…
jokker
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5
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5 answers

How to sequence tasks given time estimates?

What are the recommended techniques to get the fastest completion time? Just an example, a project has 6 tasks: task1 takes 1 day task2 takes 2 days task3 takes 3 days, requires both task1 and task2 task4 takes 2 days, requires task 1 task5…
kittensatplay
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5
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3 answers

How do I roughly estimate the size of my project in dollar amounts?

I've managed a few small projects at work, but I've never dealt with the budget. For instance, I've had a few tool projects, and two contracts, full time developers, and students. The project lasts about 8 months. How would you estimate the size…
kelf
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1 answer

Database build up estimation for time

I was asked to estimate my time for building a database engine, which would be a session-aware engine, in order to persist in memory the objects of the db. The thing is that I had a code, an engine depended on Spring & Hibernate which didn't do…
hephestos
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4
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6 answers

What questions would you recommend to put into project estimation checklist?

I would like to create common checklist for project estimation in my organization. The idea behind is to make sure that you have taken into account different aspects (ie. lack of knowledge of given technology, people leaves, 3rd dependencies,…
Tomek Dabrowski
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4
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1 answer

Pragmatic method to check/improve effort calculations

Somebody asked me to look over their cost calculation for an internal IT project in the 1.5 mio € range. They did some eyeballing, and are now asking me to cross-check it for them with a few hours of effort. There is no malice involved, i.e. I am…
AnoE
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