I suffer from "programmer's optimism": I invariably underestimate how long a project is going to take.

And so, after 25 years experience, I've come up with a pretty reliable algorithm for computing schedule estimates:

  1. Take the "instinctive" time I think I can do it.
  2. Multiply it by 3.
I've been very surprised at how accurate that simple algorithm has been. Whether its just a week long project (which my gut always tells me will take "2 days, tops"), or a 12 month project (which my gut always tells me is a 4-5 month effort).

YMMV, of course. Your multiplier may be different. And if its going to be a team effort, that may effect your multipler as well (tho, inexplicably, I've found the 3x factor seems to work in that case too)

Presumably, you've concluded your estimation skills are flawed based on prior experience...so take the estimates you made in those cases and compare to how long the project actually took. You may be amazed to find the same result I did: a simple multiplier, regardless the duration/size of the project.

In reply to Re: OT-ish: Estimating time to code by renodino
in thread OT-ish: Estimating time to code by kwaping

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.