Project Estimation

There are some interesting discussions taking place on project estimation. Project Dune 1.4.2 came out yesterday, where you can register your estimates per activity per scope statement. So that's basically "ballpark" level of detail.

There are some new requirements that are coming up that look really interesting. PM's really seem to (want to) use some kind of math magic to get to certain numbers and then tweak them.

So, what really matters in a project? What are factors that, if they change, significantly affect the timeline of a project?

I've already mentioned that the level of communication is a huge issue. So, if your team increases, you'll increase contention within the team, the need for communication (which loses time) and so on. Especially at the start, where the PM actually intended to move fastest. So the rest of the trajectory people are generally told to "get on with it", leading to unsatisfiable levels of communication and lower standards of quality.

Oh well! :)... Expect some more notices in the future with regards to this topic.