Software Project Estimation: Intelligent Forecasting, Project Control, and Client Relationship Management

• “Certainty or safety is a basic need”—At some level every person needs safety. At the most elementary level, a person needs physical and psychological safety. This is true even when a person engages in an inherently risky endeavor like starting a new software project.

• “A software team can deliver continuously within a controlled productivity range”— Modern delivery teams have mastered proven software engineering practices and have repeatedly demonstrated that their productivity can remain within constant limits throughout the duration of a project. We will take “constant limits” to mean that if there are two comparable pieces of functionality, then the team will complete these by expanding comparable amounts of effort, and we can expect this to hold true throughout the project (with the possible exception of the first few weeks when people are picking up speed).

• “Project control is more important than record keeping”—On a software project, the primary responsibility of anyone involved is to take actions with the intent to control and steer the project to success. Bookkeeping is of secondary or ternary importance. The benefit of forecasting is to pull certain important decisions earlier in the project’s life. We are not forecasting to prove something right or wrong, nor are we estimating to keep a record and hold people accountable for the estimation numbers they produced. 

• “It is only worth forecasting when there is ability to act”—A forecast on its own does not change the outcome of a project. There must be a real possibility that we make control decisions, which lead to measured and timely actions, and change the project’s parameters. If such readiness for action does not exist on a project, and will never exist regardless of new knowledge, then forecasting becomes useless.