Software Estimation: Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

Software estimation is a difficult prob-lem. Some have called it a black art. How does one go about learning this black art? Actually, it is not as exciting as it sounds: It takes practice and hard work. Unless developers get regular prac-tice doing estimation work, improvement will be difficult. My son’s karate instruc-tor shouts his philosophy about practice at the end of each karate session: “Practice doesn’t make perfect! Perfect practice makes perfect!” Most software developers do some estimation work, but many are not trained to do it properly. Regular estima-tion work with feedback gives the devel-oper the opportunity to improve his/her estimation skills. This article presents a few ideas about how to involve software developers in the estimation process. The techniques presented are being used at the author’s organization with some suc-cess; result data will be presented later in the article