I have to weigh in on this in support of everything stated so far. John is right, the first estimate is the one that "sticks" so that estimate has to factor in what is known about the problem, solution, and path at the time the estimate is requested, which is often before any real discovery has taken place. The less information known before the estimate, the higher the estimate will be, if for no other reasons than to make sure everyone is covered with no surprises. And of course, while customers will do their best to give all of the information needed at the outset of the task, the reality is that any and all information needs to be weighed against some kind of objective review to ensure that the information is accurate and complete. In fact, I believe that ensuring that all of the important information is on the table is a real art form! (I mean, hey, that's what discovery and analysis are for, right?) And as Jerry said, there can be a lot of time invested in those tasks. Asking someone to estimate a complete job - which includes the discovery and analysis needed to estimate the remainder of the tasks - without having those tasks completed in advance is pretty much asking for an unknown on a fixed timeline, which is as close to an impending failure as one can intentionally get.
For the past several years I've been taking a multi-stage approach to the larger projects. Certainly on a smaller project I've finally gotten to a point where I can spitball an estimate pretty reliably, but on the big ones I'll estimate the discovery separate from the analysis separate from the implementation+testing+installation. And of course, documentation is also estimated separately. Most customers - to date - have been pretty happy to give me a small budget for discovery knowing that it pays big dividends in more accurate estimates for the rest of the project. And accurate, on time, and on budget makes everyone happy. -K http://www.PrecisOnline.com ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
