Re: Project Estimating

Way back when we used: (#formats (Update =2) +4)*4  This would allow 25% design,
25% documentation, 50% code/debug for a project scope.  On any individual 
program
there was a great swing to actual, but on a project basis it came very close. 
The
+4 was a difficulty factor and after a period of use we settled on +4 as a 8
verb(command) average.

The design process included all the meeting time for presentation/check 
off/impact
study, etc. and we can't forget documentation :)
Rule of thumb in a manual world was that it took as long to document as it 
takes to
develop, but that's changed.  The other rule was that each hour of design (to a
point) saved 4 hours of rework.

BTW, when we had people shoot from the hip they had a tendency to forget the 
behind
the scene commands: file create, reorganize, purge expired entries, undo, etc. 
that
may not take up much time each but by including them in the overall estimate 
gave
us a buffer for the "Oh, I forgot to tell you about..." kind of stuff that
invariably would pop up.

Jon Paris wrote:

> I have a query from a customer who's seeking "Rules of Thumb" for estimating
> development effort for AS/400 RPG projects.    They have problems with their
> estimates being much too low, and are trying to become more accurate.  An
> example of the types of things they would like to document would be, based on 
>x
> files, y screens, and z updates, a typical program might take xx days to
> develop.
>
> I've been out of production work for too long to guestimate this - any got any
> ideas they would care to share?
>
> Jon Paris - AS/400 AD Market Support - paris@ca.ibm.com
> Phone: (416) 448-4019   -   Fax: (416) 448-4414
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