PM questions

V 0

All, In PM you have certain techniques and methods that can determine 1. The man-days necessary for a project. 2. Determine the cost/day for the project. (based on system complexity, junior/senior level, ...) What are good techniques to use? I would like to google those and see what info I can get. Many thanks.

V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview Archive

Baconbutty

Off you go to google then. there will be a wealth of disinformation out there :) Allocate a person about 75% of their time, so they have a bit of leeway to deal with all the other crp that comes their way. Give a realistic timescale for your initial guess, don't fit it into what you think the management want. That will only bit you in the rear BIG TIME when they decide to cut the time even more.

Joined Folding@Home 12 March 2009. Laptop probably not up to it but it's chugging away.

Michael Bookatz

I find guesstimates work works amazing for this type of thing.... Just think of a number and times by 3!

V 0

hopingToCode wrote:

Just think of a number and times by 3

Actually we're going up to 400% right now. It's the initial figure that's difficult :-).

V.
Stop smoking so you can: Enjoy longer the money you save. Moviereview Archive

Baconbutty

I always work in units of 2 weeks for a simple data extraction/display program and initial testing.

Joined Folding@Home 12 March 2009. Laptop probably not up to it but it's chugging away.

taralsoni

Dear V, There are couple of techniques which are widely accepted by the industry. One of them is FPA - Function Point Analysis. I personally prefer it because of the accurate estimates. It requires little effort from PM side. If you dont want to put so much of efforts you can go for "Lines of Code". Based on your experience estimate the lines of code for the current project and calculate the resources. Although it does not consider the complexity of the functionality and profociency of resource working on it. Where FPA considers complexity as well as proficiency. That is why it provides accurate results. Thanks Taral Soni

Regards ------------------------------ Symbiosis Center for Information Technology, Pune, India "Life is not fare..... better start living with it"

Rage

Go see on the fogcreek homepage how Spolsky handle that in Fogbugz.

Stuart Dootson

Add COCOMO[^] to the list of techniques you can use. It's very configurable, so you can make sure you get the answer you need :-) Or you can take it seriously and get a good answer! Yes, we use it in the organisation I work for

Java, Basic, who cares - it's all a bunch of tree-hugging hippy cr*p

cpkilekofp

hopingToCode wrote:

I find guesstimates work works amazing for this type of thing.... Just think of a number and times by 3!

Similar to "Scotty" time, which is double it, then double it again :laugh: