A practical approach to project effort estimate
It’s called an estimate because it’s bound to change as the development progresses, and as both the partners (the customer and the service provider) get a better understanding of the project. The use of the word partners takes significant importance since mutual trust and understanding is necessary for a project to be successful. At CircleSource we follow a simple two step process –
a. The sales team, which includes a technical specialist, estimates based on the available product overview and provides ball park figures to the customer. These are typically an order of magnitude estimates, e.g. 6 to 8 person months or $10,000-15,000. This estimate includes a list of features to be developed, development methodology, deliverables and time lines.
b. During the first 2-3 weeks, CircleSource puts its best efforts at gathering business objectives and requirement of the product. A Software Requirement Specification or wireframes or screen mock-ups are created during this time. Based on this, we provide revised estimates to the customer which becomes the point of reference to the overall project cost and time. This is also the time when we provide business and technology suggestions, based on our experience, to improve the product. Both the sales team and the project lead are involved in this stage.
With the advent of Agile, where the entire product development is broken down into 2-3 weeks iterations, it has become easy to provide a realistic view of the project timelines to the customer. We provide iteration based releases to get continual suggestions and changes from the customer. However, a basic pre-requisite of Agile is that whenever the requirements change, the iteration plan needs to be revised and communicated to the customer. We have to act as trusted advisors to the customers, consult them on the feature addition versus time and cost balance, and keep them updated on a daily basis on the progress. Since the basic nature of estimates is dynamic, prompt and effective communication is the key for success.
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Estimation of efforts is extremely critical to success of any project at all levels. We provide estimates during sales cycle to give the customer a ball park figure on the cost and efforts. Usually at this point the requirements are not fully developed and understood and hence the estimates are also pretty high level with some margin of error. As the requiems get more refined as the project proceeds, the estimates become more accurate with the margin of error becoming smaller. As we progress in the project the key, as noted by Sanchit, is to keep the communication channel open with the customers. Ultimately, the goal is to get as accurate estimates as possible. Although this is a utopian goal, nevertheless a goal every organization needs to have.