Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Best Practices (Microsoft))
by Steve McConnell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steve McConnellEdition: Paperback
Published: 2006-03-01
ISBN: 0735605351
Number of pages: 308
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Book Reviews of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Best Practices (Microsoft))
Book Review: Good Primer to start with
Summary: 4 Stars
I have just completed the reading. Not that, I didn't know estimation, nor that I was struggling to do a right kind of estimation. I am already fairly accustomed with standard tools and techniques in the world of professional software estimation. What I found appealing in this book is the approach towards estimation at the start.
Today, I was sitting in an informal discussion session with a bunch of college graduates who barely completed 1 year in this industry. It was an open discussion set, and one point came up on right estimation. Many of them had gone through 20 hour workday regimen during the difficult times of the project, and all of them were convinced that somebody did not do the estimation right. To explain that estimation is not that easy math work like a college paper, I started with a quiz: What's the latitude of Sanghai. And as I continued speaking on estimating the latitude of Sanghai, I found increasing number of approving nods all around the room. Happy me! It was not always the case where I found an immediate place to apply my book reading in past, that too with the nods of approval.
Coming back to the book, I will definitely recommend this book to all software project leaders and project managers to get a feel of the subject and how to address the problem at large. To gain deeper knowledge there are tons of research papers and books waiting for you, but if you are a busy professional, go through this book first.
Summary of Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (Best Practices (Microsoft))
Often referred to as the "black art" because of its complexity and uncertainty, software estimation is not as hard or mysterious as people think. However, the art of how to create effective cost and schedule estimates has not been very well publicized. While the average software organization can struggle with project costs that run double their original estimates, some of the more sophisticated organizations achieve results with estimation errors as low as 5-10%. These best-in-class organizations use scientific techniques that are not cost-effective, however, making them of limited use to most software development organizations. To address these issues, Software Estimation focuses on the art of software estimation and provides a proven set of procedures and heuristics that software developers, technical leads, and project managers can apply to their projects. Instead of arcane treatises and rigid modeling techniques, award-winning author Steve McConnell gives practical guidance to help organizations achieve basic estimation proficiency and lay the groundwork to continue improving project cost estimates. This book is organized from simple tips to more advanced ideas; it does not avoid the more hairy mathematical estimation approaches, but the non-mathematical reader will find plenty of useful guidelines without getting bogged down in complex formulas.Languages & Tools Books
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