Why Are Software Development Estimates Regularly Off By a Factor 2-3 Times?

About More Software Development Estimates

Reblogged from Startup Answers: (written by Michael Wolfe)

Let’s take a hike on the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles to visit our friends in Newport Beach. I’ll whip out my map and draw our route down the coast:

The History of Software

The line is about 400 miles long; we can walk 4 miles per hour for 10 hours per day, so we’ll be there in 10 days.

We call our friends and book dinner for next Sunday night, when we will roll in triumphantly at 6 p.m. They can’t wait! We get up early the next day giddy with the excitement of fresh adventure.

We strap on our backpacks, whip out our map, and plan our first day. We look at the map. Uh oh: