<\/span><\/h2>\nHere are some general guidelines for crafting a solid estimate.<\/p>\n
1. Break the Project into Tasks<\/h3>\n
Break the high level task down into the individual tasks and investigate each of those things. Smaller things are easier to estimate, and it\u2019s easier to give concrete estimates for them. For example \u201cadd a method to the controller\u201d is simpler and going to have a better estimate than \u201cwrite an application for checking mobile apps are valid.\u201d
\nAlso, if any single task gets too big, the things you’re guessing about it will probably be too large and abstract and therefore you\u2019ll miss things – so you\u2019ll get a better estimate if you break it down into simpler sub-tasks.<\/p>\n
2. Determine the Overall Objective<\/h3>\n
Is the product objective or outcome of this task clear?<\/strong>
\nIf not, it will take longer because you\u2019ll have to go back and find out the information you need (and wait for the person to work out what they want), or you\u2019ll deliver something only to be told that it\u2019s the wrong thing and you\u2019ll have to do it again. You should try and avoid this\u2026<\/p>\nIs it quick to know whether the task has been completed, or do you need to wait to know the outcome (e.g. is it a daily cron job, do you have to wait for Product to do something, etc)<\/strong>
\nIf you get fast feedback, then as soon as you see it\u2019s working you\u2019re done. Otherwise you have to wait for someone else and then you might have to fix bugs and wait for them and fix more bugs and wait for them and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n3. Identify Outlying Factors Needed for Success<\/h3>\n
Does the project have tests?<\/strong>
\nIf not, it\u2019ll take you longer because you\u2019ll have to spend more time manually testing or fixing bugs.<\/p>\nIs the CI\/CD config up-to-date?<\/strong>
\nIf not, it\u2019ll take you longer because you\u2019ll need to fix the config.<\/p>\nDo you have access to all resources needed to complete the task? (app configuration, external services, etc.)<\/strong>
\nIf not, you\u2019ll have to wait to get the information you need and it might be wrong and it might make it harder to debug problems and it might mean that it takes longer to fix problems (because you have to wait for someone else to change the thing again.)<\/p>\nDoes your task have any dependencies or anticipated code conflicts?<\/strong>
\nIf you have to wait for someone else to provide something, they might be late and that could cause your task to be later.<\/p>\nIf you\u2019re working on a code path that you know someone else is working on or has had a lot of changes recently (so someone else might be working on it), their changes might break yours, then you\u2019ll have to work together to sort it out and this will probably take longer than expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this post we explore how to develop a project timeline and some general best practices for smoother project management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3092,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/3092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rainforestqa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}