Re:Ask HN: Do you have faith in any time estimating system?
by db48x on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @05:41AM
(#18128791)
I like the default time tracking that is used in the FogBugz bug tracker. Everyone estimates how long it'll take to finish each bug, and records how long it actually took. Of course these are all self-reported, so they can be wrong in any number of ways.
So when you ask FogBugz when the next milestone will be completed, it doesn't just add up the estimates. Instead, for each ticket it finds similar tickets with similar estimates, and picks from that list one of the actual reported times. It then adds up those reported times to make a guess at a real estimate. It then runs the same simulation 100 times to show you how likely you are to hit various dates.
So when you ask FogBugz when the next milestone will be completed, it doesn't just add up the estimates. Instead, for each ticket it finds similar tickets with similar estimates, and picks from that list one of the actual reported times. It then adds up those reported times to make a guess at a real estimate. It then runs the same simulation 100 times to show you how likely you are to hit various dates.