{"id":111,"date":"2011-09-17T08:06:09","date_gmt":"2011-09-17T08:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.finditez.com\/blog\/?p=111"},"modified":"2026-03-09T05:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T12:45:44","slug":"on-time-on-budget-as-specified-the-1-best-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/on-time-on-budget-as-specified-the-1-best-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"On Time On Budget – Productivity Software tip 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

# 1 – … and the number one factor affecting the probability of project success or failure is, by far, the accuracy of the estimates themselves.<\/strong>\u00a0 It really does come down to that.\u00a0 Budget for the project is allocated based on the ( resource time and cost ) estimates.\u00a0 Target completion and milestone dates are based on the ( task effort ) estimates.\u00a0\u00a0 Design and cost\/benefit decisions for what’s in, what’s out and the best way to accomplish the in-scope deliverables are based on the estimates.\u00a0 You need to get this right, everything else depends on it.<\/p>\n

Despite advances in software estimating techniques and software engineering in general, the art of producing accurate estimates remains elusive.\u00a0 Without a good estimate, it is virtually impossible to deliver medium to large software enhancement projects on time on budget and as specified.\u00a0 After years in the industry, and trying everything from function point analysis to lines-of-code complexity metrics, I came to the conclusion that biggest challenge was the accuracy and source of the information used to base the estimates themselves on.\u00a0 Let me explain.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, you need to get a clear understanding of in-scope deliverables.\u00a0 Next, you need to recruit a team of subject matter experts to gather intelligence for the estimating process.\u00a0 At the early stage, it can be difficult to get the attention of key programmers and systems analysts within an organization. These same resources are typically frantically finishing off or recovering from implementation of the last big project they were on before being allocated to your new project team.\u00a0 What to do?\u00a0 You need timely, accurate and complete information about the scope and complexity of software changes you plan to make.<\/p>\n

From my personal experience, using ballpark estimating tools and techniques like function point analysis gets you in the ball park at best.\u00a0 You have no formal list of actual affected items to support your seemingly outrageous estimates when sitting in a room with the stakeholders and they say “come on, you can do it faster or for less than that … it’s just a couple of tweaks here and there”.\u00a0 In fairness, how can you argue with that? Without an objective list of “here’s exactly why and what’s affected” to support your proposal, you only have your educated guess, reputation and charm as back up.\u00a0 Ever been in that situation?\u00a0 Wouldn’t it have been nice to have just such a list … instead of bending to the pressure and adjusting your estimates down to an unrealistic and unattainable doomed target?\u00a0 It’s a story too often experienced and told.<\/p>\n

Even with good estimates, it is critical that the project itself be properly managed.\u00a0 Stay focused, on task, in scope.\u00a0 Communicate. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when needed, raise the red flag when you run into unforeseen circumstances that you recognize may affect your ability to complete tasks as estimated.<\/p>\n

The old saying is true, garbage-in, garbage-out.\u00a0 You have to get the estimates right<\/strong>.\u00a0 Stop using ballpark Wild Ass Guess tools and techniques, and look for products and tools that can create accurate checklists of exactly what would be affected throughout your entire application if you change software component or database table “x” to deliver feature “y” in the requirements specification<\/strong>.\u00a0 When you have accurate and complete change lists, you are empowered to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. determine the precise scope and complexity of each task<\/li>\n
  2. identify the ideal resource skill-set requirements for each task<\/li>\n
  3. produce estimates that will reflect the actual effort to complete changes with the highest possible degree of certainty<\/li>\n
  4. justify and defend your estimates with objective facts<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    # 1 – … and the number one factor affecting the probability of project success or failure is, by far, the accuracy of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,26,27,28,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pro-desktop","category-pro-server","category-365-enterprise","category-365-ultimate","category-software-estimating"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/banner.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.finditeasy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}