[FRIAM] Software development time estimates

[Barry MacKichan]

![](cid:C0BF1AAF-13F2-447F-A6D3-E4D7F6C3597A at mackichan.com 
"IMG_1664.JPG")

Attached is a sketch from my memory of the estimates of the completion 
of Microsoft Word for Windows made on various dates. The dashed line is 
where the estimated date of completion equals the year the estimate was 
made. There are about three or four squares to a year.

I suggested it be engraved in brass and displayed over the entrances to 
the buildings at Microsoft. The caption of “Abandon hope all who enter 
here” was optional.

As usual, nobody took my advice.

--Barry

On 24 Apr 2019, at 14:00, Tom Johnson wrote:

> *"Software development time estimates. *Derek M. Jones analyzes
> software-engineering data
> <http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/data-is-plural/data-is-plural-2019-04-24-edition/14233366-github.com/derek-jones/eseur-code-data?c=b52636bc-cb2b-4f8c-a7dd-a9ca89484e10>.
> Recently, he convinced a small software company to release a dataset
> documenting its internal time estimates
> <http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/data-is-plural/data-is-plural-2019-04-24-edition/14233370-github.com/derek-jones/sip_dataset?c=b52636bc-cb2b-4f8c-a7dd-a9ca89484e10>,
> spanning 10 years, 20 projects, and 10,000+ tasks. For each task, the
> dataset indicates the number of hours it was predicted to take, how 
> long it
> actually took, the (anonymized) developers it was assigned to, and 
> more.
> [h/t Erik Bern
> <http://mail01.tinyletterapp.com/data-is-plural/data-is-plural-2019-04-24-edition/14233374-erikbern.com/2019/04/15/why-software-projects-take-longer-than-you-think-a-statistical-model.html?c=b52636bc-cb2b-4f8c-a7dd-a9ca89484e10>
>  and Jeremy Singer-Vine <https://twitter.com/jsvine>] "
> ============================================
> Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
> Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
> 505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
> *NM Foundation for Open Government* <http://nmfog.org>
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>
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