Super Volatile

Krzysztof Szafranek's link blog

Hi, I'm Krzysztof and I make websites.
When I'm not making websites, I read these.
Feb 8, 2012 / 12:40am

Why are software development task estimations regularly off by a factor of 2-3?

My friend says, well, we've gone 40 miles in 4 days, it is at least a 600 mile trip, so that's 60 days, probably 70 to be safe. I say, "no f--ing way... yes, I've never done this walk before, but I *know* it does not take 70 days to walk from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Our friends are going to laugh at us if we call and tell them we won't see them until Easter!
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This metaphor for software estimation is so accurate it's not even funny.