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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.

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How to Estimate Any Software Problem

Herding Cats

ways to make decisions with No Estimates. can we make a decision in the presence of Uncertainty without making an estimate of the impact or outcome of that decision? What would be the evidence that we could make decisions in the presence of uncertanty without estimating the impacts and outcomes of those decisions? . Start here.

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Reading List for the Cone of Uncertainty

Herding Cats

The primary purpose of software estimation is not to predict a project’s outcome; it is to determine whether a project’s targets are realistic enough to allow the project to be controlled to meet them ? 10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation , Steve McConnell , Construx, 2002. Steve McConnell.

2012 48
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There is Little New Under the Sun

Herding Cats

It is popular to claim we've never done this before, so how can we possibly estimate the cost and schedule. If it truly hasn't been done before, then the software project is likely to be an inventing new physics project. In that world, we still made estimates of the cost to design, build, and operate the experiment.

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Misunderstanding Making Decisions in the Presence of Uncertainty

Herding Cats

What happens if you shift focus from "accurate estimation" to "reliably shipping by a date"? . If your project has no uncertainty, there is no need to estimate. All estimates have precision and accuracy. Deciding how much precision and accuracy is needed for a credible estimate is critical to the success of that decision.

2003 46
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Cone of Uncertainty Bibliography

Herding Cats

I work in a domain where the CoU is baked into the Integrated Program Performance Management (IPPM) processes flowed down from the buyer, in this case, the Federal Government. This can be the confidence in the estimate for any variable. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management , 57 (4), pp. IN this case Mean Time To Failure.

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Economics of Software Development

Herding Cats

This is the foundation for estimates. Estimates with accuracy and precision values needed to make credible decisions. These estimates are critical to both developers and customers. These estimates are used for generating requests for proposals, contract negotiations, scheduling, monitoring, and control. No Estimates?