After the major fuck up that was my estimate of the work involved in my last project, I was determined to do better this time. I have been reading a lot about extreme programming and have chosen to employ it’s methods in my work. Their advice with the design phase of a project is not to plan too much, to be ready for change and to be very careful when estimating deadlines. One phrase sticks in my head, if something looks like it’s going to take 3-4 days, break it down into smaller parts. Combine this with the rule that no one thing ever really takes less than half a day and you have a process which I hope will turn out to be vaguely accurate.

As I went through the project specification document with a fine toothcomb I thought about my work process. Sure I can acheive task X in an hour, but only if I’m already in the flow of work and I don’t have to orient myself to it. I can maybe achieve task X in that time, but there is no way that I can achieve eight tasks that should take an hour in one day, even if I work full pelt. It doesn’t work that way. I need tea, I need to send emails to clients, make phone calls, find files, research things. All of this adds up.

I had in mind another piece of advice that a friend of mine had given me, “You need to firmly believe in your ability to call the prices and time estimates (even when you are wincing your through an icy patch of the conversation) to ensure that he knows the reason why he has employed you at this critical time.” Too many often I have gone the other way and downgraded my estimates, only subtly, just erring on the lower side, and paid the penalty.

There’s always the possibility I have done that again this time. The extreme programmers talk about making estimates in ideal days and then multiplying by a load factor, usually in the order of 2 or 3. I didn’t do that. I made estimates in something more like genuine time and kept rounding up and then added about 15% extra to each of the five milestones and an extra 10% for project management. I did conceed to write documentation for everything in that time as well, but this is a low pressure task and one which can easily extend a few days beyond any deadline.

I feel relatively confident about the work. This is a miracle given that when we had the initial meeting my recent failure was fresh in my mind. Even just the concept of delivering “something within a week” was unduly stressful. As each milestone is met, my confidence will return more and more.