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Estimating a Software Deadline Is Really Hard — Let’s Talk About Why
The 5 laws you need to know for planning
As you progress through your career, you might find yourself taking on more and more responsibilities until you find yourself in a managerial role. You will be responsible for the delivery and often quality of work that is outputted by the team.
To ensure that the team remains fully occupied and that the team members are efficiently and effectively utilized, you will be required to plan for the future.
“If you have to forecast, forecast often.” — Edgar Fiedler
Planning for the future often sounds easier than it is. Every planning decision made, every forecast completed, is made on the back of a significant number of assumptions. If any of those assumptions are wrong, you can wave your plan goodbye.
As you become experienced in the dark arts of estimating the work required for each task necessary to complete a project, you will identify areas of improvement and you will begin implementing your own laws.
That is, you will come up with some rules that will help enable you to have more accurate estimates.
In this blog, we are going to cover some widely accepted laws that are out there, which could potentially help us plan better.
1. Hofstadter’s Law
“It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
This law was coined in 1979, and it is as true today as it was back then. It is a widely accepted law in the software community, highlighting the difficulty involved in estimating how long work will take upfront.
To battle this problem, there have been many techniques developed by different teams and organizations. A quick Google search will provide you with more ideas than you can ever use.
My favorite technique is something called Planning Poker. Planning Poker is a team-based activity that takes estimates from the whole team.
