Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Truly Rapid Development

Ran across an old, but interesting article on how to save time and costs on developing software. Found it pretty interesting:

http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/9148/Stick-your-con-call-up-your-estimate-6-things-you-can-skip-to-save-time-in-a-software-project.aspx

The interesting point here was the recommendation to skip estimates. I've never dealt with a customer who didn't want, or demand, time estimates on everything, but I agree with this article's assessment -- at the end of the day, the customer is either going to pay for the work, or not pay for it.

To-the-hour estimates, I agree, are painstaking and probably a waste of time, considering that more than likely, the estimate will be inaccurate anyway, or something may happen during the course of the project (change order?) that makes that original estimate wrong. However, in order to plan a project and create proper milestones and deliverables, there has to be some sort of estimate of time it will take to complete a task. Maybe weeks, not hours, would be better suited here.

Just thinking out-loud here, but wanted to share the article. Hope someone finds it as useful as I did.

--
Carl Scott
Software Developer, Solertium Corporation
View Carl Scott's profile on LinkedIn View Carl Scott's ohloh profile