Comments on: One Useful Agile Method For Project Estimations

By: Juuso Hietalahti

Juuso Hietalahti — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:42:48 +0000

What I’ve found useful is to:

1) First ask the client’s budget
2) …and then tell what he can get for that price*

Saves everybody’s time.

* (after careful estimation based on your past experience, uncertainty of the projects, splitting it in tasks and other factors)

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:47:47 +0000

That’s an interesting way of tackling it.
I’d found that estimating x2 was reasonably acurate, perhaps I should adopt x3 in future to ensure I’m always under budget?
None of this really works when prepping a quote for a new client though. If you were to quote x3 to a client, they’d most likely say “How much!!???” and go elsewhere. If you adobted this agile method, you’d have to quote them your first estimate, then come back to them at some point down the line with the revised actual (x3) estimate. There’s no way they’d be happy with that setup. I guess it works better having got it wrong a few times first?

By: BC

BC — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:55:20 +0000

x3 has always worked for me too, but with experience I’ve started being able to estimate x2.5 :D

Agile development : When it works, it works great. When it doesn’t work …it’s probably being done wrong because the manager didn’t understand it properly …but he still swears by it.

By: Ger

Ger — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:44:55 +0000

I agree with Josh. Follow the law of PI: multiply by 3.14 and you will be OK.

By: desertdweller

desertdweller — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:27:53 +0000

Yeah, makes sense. Although I don’t call such relative units points; I just call them units.

Or I take the estimated number of months x 2. School and sports slow down my work rate a lot too. :)

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 16:15:03 +0000

My formula is this:

Time if everything goes smoothly X 3 = actual time

And I am usually early!