Step One: Establish Estimate Scope and Purpose

October 5, 2008 · Filed Under Estimation Process, Software Estimating, Ten Step Project Estimation Process  - 1 Comment(s)

Establish Estimate Scope and Purpose

Define and document expectations. When all participants understand the scope and purpose of the estimate, you’ll not only have a baseline against which to gauge the effect of future changes; you’ll also head off misunderstandings among the project group and clear up contradictory assumptions about what is expected.

Documenting the application specifications, including technical details, external dependencies and business requirements, will provide valuable input for estimating the resources required to complete the project. The more detailed the specs, the better. Only when these requirements are known and understood can you establish realistic development costs.

An estimate should be considered a living document; as data changes or new information becomes available, it must be documented and factored into the estimate in order to maintain the project’s integrity.

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Ten-Step Project Estimation Process Introduction

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Step Two: Establish Technical Baseline, Ground Rules, and Assumptions


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Comments

One Response to “Step One: Establish Estimate Scope and Purpose”

  1. Lee on October 6th, 2008 3:21 pm

    It is super important, when establishing the scope of an estimate, to start with a soup-to-nuts list of all the activities in a project. A project starts with a concept and ends with user support. In between are a variable number of phases including requirements, design, code, fixing the draft of the code, more detailed testing where a set of cases start to be kept, documenting the stuff, etc. You have to either estimate everything, or identify who else is providing the money for certain activities, so you don’t have to estimate the costs of them :)

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