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Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by thatoneuser on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @03:44AM (#19671844)
Eh. I've been successful adding 20% in. I feel like if you have to double first (meaning your end result is 220% of what you originally estimated) then you aren't learning from previous mistakes. Maybe 220 is appropriate for the first time you do work or work with a certain team tho.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by crazygringo on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @09:29AM (#19673372)
> then you aren't learning from previous mistakes

???

The doubling-it is for when you build the whole component on top of a library, then discover that the library has a fatal bug you can't work around, and you have to rebuild the whole component on top of a different library, then discover that other library has another fatal bug, so now you need to include both libraries with logic around when to use which one, and then that seems to work but you add plenty of tests and documentation to make sure it works that way in prod too and not just on your dev machine.

I don't see what that has to do with learning from previous mistakes. Pretty much all but the most basic programming turns out to be like that -- dealing with unforeseeable and undocumented problems.

(The 20% is because you weren't planning for sick days, an unforeseen emergency bugfix on another project, nobody remembered about the afternoon retreat next week, etc.)

Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by lostctown on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @10:13AM (#19673767)
Going through this now and boy is this true. Nothing like rewriting a 1k+ lib the day before a feature is supposed to be ready and then praying you didn't blow up some other lesser documented part of the code.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by thatoneuser on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @07:36PM (#19678297)
Yeah and I've been pretty good at estimating what to expect. I mean you'll always find surprises but personally I'm more inclined to quote a lower estimate and come back explaining the situation than to overcharge. But if you know of any clients who are throwing money around like that I'll gladly accept your 220% estimate for a few referrals ;)
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by jdsully on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @09:21PM (#19678852)
Why not just fix the lib?
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by nnq on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @04:34AM (#19672065)
220% also works fine if each one of the projects is "practically unique" to you / the team... this happens >50% of the time in the real world, imo, because some fields have very little transferable skills/experience from project to project... a large percent of stuff is genuinely new every time and never repeats even if it's "basically the same thing as that other project"! (Or team composition changes.)

Problem is the fact that you can only justify with a straight-face 45% (100%/220%) of the estimate you give to the client... Then you need to get clever at "bluffing" your way at "inventing" another extra +35% of work that you can't imagine/explain, but you know for sure that will come out of the blue - you know there's this extra 35% work needed for sure, you just have no idea what this work will be. Then finally you can say with a straight face that 20% of estimated time is for unforseen circumstances. There's two ways to see the same math:

  (1) 45% + 35% + 20% = 100%
  (2) 100% + 100% + 20% = 220%
The world would be a much better place if clients / managers / project owners etc. would just accept that 55% of time & cost for software dev is unknown-unknowns type of unexplainable/unimaginable-at-project-start-stage-work. That's just how it is! If the problem was really clearly defined and understood, there would likely already be an off-the-shelf software solution for it that could be used instead of paying developers to build custom software!

If we could just be honest with people and show them formula (2) instead of a make-up-ladden version of (1). But people don't, so we get to play the damn elegant-bullshitting game over and over again...

Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by Roark66 on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @11:36AM (#19674557)
>Then finally you can say with a straight face that 20% of estimated time is for unforseen circumstances.

This is how I always have done it across multiple jobs and I always called that extra contingency. Depending on the project I sometimes had to ask for over 50% of the total as contingency. If anyone queried it I would explain that it is very likely we'll need it based on my experience of many other projects.

Then the client would either accept it as is, or they would want to split the proposal into "what we will definitely pay for" and "what we will pay for only when it is actually needed" which is also fine for both sides if proper progress reporting has been agreed in advance.

Someone could think that no client would agree to such a contract as it would open them to be taken advantage of by an unscrupulous supplier, but at the end of the day what matters in business is trust. If a client doesn't trust the supplier they shouldn't hire them. And in all my previous projects I never met an engineer or developer that would deliberately use up the contingency time when it is not needed as everyone knows the availability of this extra time might come very important towards the end of the project.

Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by thatoneuser on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @07:39PM (#19678323)
That's a smart way to do it. I used to put in ranges (basically contingency) of rate but I found myself consistently hitting a similar % of the higher estimate and just started quoting the higher estimate with the expectation that I'm not a God and there may be unknown factors which could add in more cost. Usually people are happy as you say if there's trust and you show progress.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by hannasanarion on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @09:30AM (#19673382)
Wouldn't it be 240%?
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by thatoneuser on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @07:46PM (#19678358)
No he said double or (200) then add 20 (220). Unless there's ambiguity I'm not seeing.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by kthejoker2 on Wednesday April 17, 2019 @07:36AM (#19681602)
Add 20% of the doubled estimate (eg .2 * 200%=40%) surely?
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by thatoneuser on Thursday April 18, 2019 @01:47AM (#19689005)
Ah I see your point.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by ambicapter on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @01:08PM (#19675359)
It would.
Re:Why software projects take longer than you think – a stat... by dls2016 on Tuesday April 16, 2019 @01:25PM (#19675495)
ambiguous grammar