About the Book
If you have trouble estimating cost or schedule for your projects, you are not alone. The question is this: who wants the estimate and why?
You might be able to use different words for your estimate. You might be able to report your estimate in a way that helps your managers realize the uncertainty of the estimate. Maybe you just need the team who’s doing the work to estimate.
Learn practical and pragmatic ways to estimate schedule or cost for your projects. Learn why most estimates are wrong, and how you can create some sanity about your estimates. Learn ways to present your estimates so people will accept them. And, when your estimate is wrong, learn what you can do.
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Copy embed codeTable of Contents
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- Acknowledgements
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1. Introduction
- 1.1 Estimates Are Guesses or Predictions
- 1.2 Estimates Change
- 1.3 Estimates Expire
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2. What Estimates Are
- 2.1 Provide an Accurate but Not Precise Estimate
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3. Why Do We Estimate Anyway?
- 3.1 Why Do You Estimate?
- 3.2 Ask This Question Before You Estimate
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4. Software is Learning, Not Construction
- 4.1 Inch-Pebbles or Small Stories Show Progress
- 4.2 Learn With Spikes
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5. Think About Estimation
- 5.1 Estimating the Unknown: Dates or Budgets
- 5.2 Determine Your Degrees of Freedom
- 5.3 Insist on a Ranked Backlog
- 5.4 The Team Doing the Work Provides the Estimate
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6. How to Estimate
- 6.1 Your First Best Bet: Make Your Stories and Chunks Small
- 6.2 Your Second Best Bet: SWAG and Refine
- 6.3 Collect Data
- 6.4 When You Have a Decreed Date
- 6.5 Wrap Up
- 6.6 Estimating a Program
- 6.7 Beware of These Program Estimation Traps
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7. Rolling Wave Planning
- 7.1 Learn as the Project Proceeds
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8. There Is No Correct Estimation Model
- 8.1 We Invent; We Don’t Repeat
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9. But I Need to Know When the Project Will Be Done
- 9.1 What You Can Say to Managers Who Think They Need to Know
- 10. NoEstimate or Do Your Estimates Provide Value?
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11. Use All Four Parts of Project Estimation
- 11.1 Part 1: Create an Initial Estimate
- 11.2 Part 2: Track Estimation Quality Factor to Understand the Project Estimate
- 11.3 Part 3: Use EQF to Manage Project Concerns
- 11.4 Part 4: Update Your Estimate as You Know More
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12. Show Your Status and Update Your Estimate
- 12.1 Probabilistic Scheduling
- 13. Refocusing: 90% Done Is Not Almost Done
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14. Future Fixes
- 14.1 Plan Ahead
- 14.2 Hindsight is 20-20
- 14.3 Track Your Estimates
- 14.4 Measure Bad Fixes
- 14.5 Manage Your Buffers
- 14.6 Incorporate Agility
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Troubleshooting Your Estimation Problems
- 15. Avoid Multitasking
- 16. Avoid Student Syndrome
- 17. Estimation Units Predict Schedule Slippage
- 18. Edit Those Epics
- 19. What You Can Do For Estimation
- 20. Estimation Depends On…
- 21. Estimating Testing Time
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22. Need to Learn More About the Work You’re Doing? Spike It!
- 22.1 How Does a Spike Work?
- 22.2 Spikes Are About Learning
- 22.3 What Happens to the Code at the End of the Spike?
- 22.4 “Use the Code As Is…”
- 22.5 How Many People Were Involved in the Learning?
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23. Use Targets as Estimates
- 23.1 How to Use Targets
- 23.2 When the Target Is a Trap
- 24. How to Avoid Three Big Estimation Traps
- 25. Understanding Multitasking and the Cost of Delay on Estimation
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26. What You Know About Estimation Now
- 26.1 Transition to an Agile Approach or an Incremental Approach for Your Projects
- 26.2 Make Your Features Small
- 26.3 Iterate on your Estimate
- 26.4 Don’t Multitask
- 26.5 Don’t Let Defects Dictate Your Estimate
- 26.6 Final Thoughts
- Glossary
- References
- More from Johanna
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About the Author
Johanna Rothman
Johanna Rothman, known as the “Pragmatic Manager,” provides frank advice for your tough problems. She helps leaders and teams see problems and resolve risks and manage their product development.
Johanna has been managing projects and programs since the Neanderthal era. She is the current agileconnection.com technical editor. She is the author of these books:
- Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
- Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Cost or Schedule
- Diving for Hidden Treasures: Finding The Real Value in Your Project Portfolio
- Project Portfolio Tips: Twelve Ideas for Focusing on the Work You Need to Start & Finish
- Manage Your Job Search
- Hiring Geeks That Fit
- Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
- The 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
- Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)
- Corrective Action for the Software Industry (with Denise Robitaille)
In addition, she is a contributor to:
Johanna writes the Pragmatic Manager, a monthly email newsletter. She writes two blogs on her site, www.jrothman.com, as well as a blog on www.createadaptablelife.com. She is a columnist about management for Techwell.com and is a columnist about agile project management for projectmanagement.com.
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