Ask Carol: With Software Sizing, If You Don't Know the What, You Can't Estimate the How
Dear Carol:
I’m a developer in our IT department and we know that project estimating is a big deal for our customers. Somehow, no matter what we do, we can't seem to get it right. We do know that project size is an important input to good estimating and our gut feel is that if we get sizing right, we’ll do better estimates! I know you recommend using function points, but I’ve also been reading a lot about use case points, story points, SLOC, sizing by analogy, T-shirt sizing, COSMIC and other sizing metrics. We do a mix of waterfall, agile, iterative and even Kanban to do our projects so what’s the best choice for sizing to get the best results?
- Size Challenged in Milwaukee
Dear Size Challenged:
Sometimes I wonder if the internet and the proliferation of (mis)information is a good thing. Before the internet, our choices (for sizing or estimating or anything) were limited and we didn’t have such an overwhelming task to first sift through many options before taking action. Your list of software sizing choices is an example of this.