Remove Article Remove Estimate Remove Manufacturing Remove Software Development
article thumbnail

Basis of Estimating Software Development

Herding Cats

The estimating of software development is both straightforward and complex. When it is suggested that estimating is hard, of no value, and unnecessary, always ask what principle is used to support that claim? Software Sizing and Estimating: Mk II FPA , Charles Symons, John Wiley & Sons, 1991.

article thumbnail

Principles of Cost and Schedule Estimating

Herding Cats

One of the 4 summary root causes of project performance failures is Unrealistic Cost and Schedule Estimates based on inadequate risk-adjusted growth models. If you have no uncertainty, then estimates provide no value. One notion in a governance paradigm is It's Not Your Money . This is how business works.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Is Software Development Art or Engineering

Herding Cats

Signal processing is a domain of software development well suited to the paradigm of engineered systems. This domain has turned into the S oftware Intensive System of Systems (SISoS) paradigm that dominates software development activities today. Software-intensive systems include: . Related articles.

article thumbnail

When to Estimate and When Estimates aren't Needed

Herding Cats

Paul Boos has a post about estimating and makes a case for the Principles of when NOT to estimate. This struck a cord around a bigger topic - the inversion of estimating. When should we NOT estimate? Then on to the original conjecture for No Estimates from Paul's post. That is, to make decision with “No estimates”.

article thumbnail

Aleatory and Epistemic Uncertainty in Software Development Projects

Herding Cats

All software development projects operate in the presence of uncertainty. The design and development of software must rely on estimation, forecasts, and predictions based on an idealized understanding of what is an unknown (but knowable) understanding of reality. Related articles. IT Risk Management.

article thumbnail

Estimates, Forecasts, Projections

Herding Cats

An Estimate is a value inferred for a population of values based on data collected from a sample of data from that population. The estimate can also be produced parametrically or through a simulation (Monte Carlo is common, but Method of Moments is another we use). . Estimates can be about the past, present, or future.

article thumbnail

4 Fallacious Reasons to Estimate and Why Those Are Fallacious

Herding Cats

There's a recent post titled Four Fallacious Reasons to Estimate. It lists the usual suspects for why those spending the money think they don't have to estimate how much they plan to spend when they'll be done producing the value they've been assigned to produce for that expenditure. Let's look at each one in more detail.