The CHAOS reports published the Standish Group reveal the dramatic reality of the software projects: 19% of the web projects are considered complete failures, 52% are challenged and only 29% of the projects are considered successful.
In this presentation, a repeatable process for project estimation and pricing will be illustrated. The process manages to harness the black art of project estimation through a methodical approach and scientific tools.
The main steps of the process are:
1. Client and project qualification – decide if this project is for you based on a clear set of criteria and questions.
2. Pre-scoping phase – understand client requirements, ask questions to clarify details and understand his business context.
3. [optional] Ballpark estimate – for large projects, we only offer a ballpark estimate.
4. [optional] Paid scoping phase – paid consultation to flesh out the requirements and write the spec document.
5. [optional] Discovery phase – allocate between 5 to 20h to create a micro prototype that will provide visibility and eliminate the technical risks.
6. Work on estimating the project
a. Break down the entire project to small tasks of maximum 6 hours each.
b. Make sure you include in your estimate activities like initial setup of the development environment, deployment, and others.
c. Ask the developer that will be working on the project (or a Senior Developer) to provide a 3 point estimate for every task in the list. Include an expected, best case and worst case estimate for every task.
d. If a task is estimated at more than 6h, break it down further to smaller tasks.
e. If it is not possible to break down a task into smaller max 6h tasks, run a “Discovery phase” and create a micro prototype to eliminate the risks and gain clarity (see point #5 above).
f. Add up the values and calculate the total.
g. Add your project management coefficient on top of the total.
h. Know your team’s mean estimate error from your last year and apply it on top of the total.
7. Communicate the estimate to the client.