Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
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Importance of Effort Estimation
There are two aspects of effort estimation. One aspect is resources required for
the project, and the other aspect is the schedule for the project. The amount of
resources required directly relates to costs for your project. Schedule relates directly
to customer satisfaction. If, due to a lower schedule estimate than actually required,
your project gets delayed, then it adversely affects customer's confidence.
It is a reality that on most projects resource requirements increase as the project
progresses. Similarly the schedule also gets prolonged with progress of the proj-
ect. Customers will never be ready to accept these increases easily. So it is very
important that from the beginning of the project you project schedule and resource
requirements realistically.
On the other hand, you must justify your schedule and resource estimates to
your customers. Every aspect of your estimate should reflect justifiable explana-
tions. Projects with automation of test case execution always face a wrong expecta-
tion from customers. Customers expect that due to the automation element, project
schedules should be collapsed. But in reality, the opposite is true. Automated test
cases require the additional task of creating scripts, so a greater effort is required
for automated test cases than for manual test cases. The benefit of automated test
cases comes when they are executed. They take less time in execution compared to
manual test cases. Also automation frameworks (e.g., keyword-driven automation
frameworks) require effort to be created. But when they are in place, they reduce
effort in maintaining automation scripts in different versions of the software, and
they are extremely useful for regression test cases.
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Practical Advice
Whatever techniques you will use for effort estimation, you will also have to con-
sider the ground realities. This includes personal productivity of your team mem-
bers. Even though software engineering processes mitigate this risk to some extent,
it is still a very important input for your planning. Not all people have the same
productivity when it comes to performing a task. Similarly, even with the same
skill set, no two people can do the same tasks with the same output. Some may be
good at performing a specific category of tasks. For instance, I had two guys with
the same skill sets and the same level of experience. But one had an aptitude for
doing simpler tasks and was very productive with those tasks. The other guy was
never that productive with any task, but he was good analytically. So he could take
complex tasks and do them without much difficulty. So the best strategy for me
was to assign simpler tasks with more volume to the first guy and assign complex
tasks to the other guy. Using these practical approaches, you can achieve more
productivity from your team.
