Estimation

Interesting set of slides on Estimation.

Slide 2: Is the estimation "funnel"

Slide 11: acmet's tools BU fell in the Nominal category.

Slide 14: For 10K lines (I do not know how these are defined - whether they include data definitions, unit tests, documentation, ...) 10 calendar months and 48 (say 50) staff-months. That is 10 lines/day ((10K/50 staff-months)/20 days/staff-month). That is somewhere near the figure that we got. Also, no mention is made of the expected residual defects.

I have a thumb rule: The number of residual defects per 1K XTSLN equals the effective XTSLN/staff-day over the elapsed time. At 10 XTSLN I would expect about 10 defects/1K XTSLN. Of course to get 0 defects/1KXTSLN we would be coding at an effective rate of 0 XTSLN/staff-day. That is not as odd as it may sound. To reduce to zero defects one would require infinite time.

(Note: XTSLN is a Lines of Code metric defined and measured by the QA C tool)

Slide 18: This is my favourite. It illustrates the estimation funnel. Note
the relative error column. There is not even 1 negative entry! For a 5 year
project the estimate becomes accurate 3 months prior to ship.

Slide 22: Note the last bullet.

Slide 23: **** Worth remembering *****

Slide 26: These are all the recovery techniques.
Note: Praying is *** not *** a recovery technique.