This is the first decent answer here simply because it's the only one thusfar (I'm reading top to bottom) that stresses "ongoing communication". Nobody has done an in depth analysis of all the implications. Otherwise, they'll just think you've dropped the ball. people may be trying to plan things based on when the work will be completed. The Workplace Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. Start time, end time. You absolutely must give more information. Theyre causing too much trouble on the back-end. So when my boss would ask in the standup (we work with Agile development) I would give him my best estimate and explain why I thought that. by accurate I mean that a stakeholder holds you accountable for. What techniques have you found useful? . I also always write my assumptions and preconditions. 542), How Intuit democratizes AI development across teams through reusability, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. I appreciate how patient youve been. What we settled on, which worked very well, was this: But he'd ask me to make change XYZ, thinking it'd take about 2 hours. The principal advantage of using the Kalman filter rather than a fixed n-second sliding window is that it's adaptive: it will automatically use a longer averaging window when measurements jump around a lot than when they're stable. Statistical Learning by Hastie, Tibshirani and Friedman. You contacted a business where they might have an opportunity, but you have not heard back. tl;dr: I want to predict file copy completion. Let them go fight out the priorities with the managers. when in a new job position. But it does. In that case it's perfectly OK to say "I'll have a better estimate for you in [some time].". Get a detailed work breakdown, estimate each component then roll it up into a larger number. Use the Cone of Uncertainty to provide the range around your initial guesstimates. But you realize that X will be delayed by three days if I do it, right? I suggest you to have regular progress update for your boss, customer or any stakeholder. @nobrandheroes That's probably worth another question. Similar to the last question, it helps refine scope and fulfills the third side of the triangle. Same as above, even for unanticipated work that's created by a slob team mate next to you with a near non-existent test procedure which causes your code to glitch out that you can't perfectly predict in advance. Best guess is about two weeks." By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. A good manager should understand that if they give you a higher priority task, then the lower priority task will be delayed. So if its vitally important to you, make HUMAN contact. No, I looked at it as letting him apply his money where he saw the most benefit. Doesnt more time need to be put into it? We dont have a lot of wiggle room here, so we need it to be quick. Field service and maintenance companies can easily monitor these times using live tracking. Easily monitor estimated completion time with live tracking. Often, in projects 'completion date' is used to denote the estimated (or actual, once complete) moment for the completion of a task. The estimate is made after scouting. Decompose this model and build estimates from the components. As a freelance consultant, she also supports companies and executives in overcoming communication challenges. There are a lot of tactics for creating them, all based on getting good requirements first. Another increasingly common one: I didnt get to it. (No excuse given; they just didnt do it.) . We need it in writing ASAP. I will be booking it when they open tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. I sent him my estimate for each task along with that detailed breakdown. First, write the email or send the task reminder. Thanks for your answer. In any event, "whenever' is not an acceptable answer. I need to know what the ETA is. Err on the side of the looser estimate. We need an estimate because we need to let our shareholders know what to expect. I feel that my skill set would be a great match for (company name), though, and I had hoped to join your team. @SergioAcosta the point is you use the analysis/estimation time to break down the task into smaller chunks. Many thanks! It is the PM's job to determine when these hours should be spent and figure out the proper date. In this case the client's decisions were Yes or No to particular features, not an overall Yes or No to the entire project. Continue with Recommended Cookies. Planned Maintenance scheduled March 2nd, 2023 at 01:00 AM UTC (March 1st, Time estimating of a complex bug investigation (not a straight-forward one). This is more work and requires more in depth thinking about the design and changes to the system, but is much more accurate, especially for larger pieces of work. or clever way of say it is "Done when it is done" ? As a rule, clients need a ballpark figure at the beginning of the project. Imagine you have applied for some jobs. You think this is ridiculous, you think you can pull this off in one week. It also shows a superior that youre working hard to get something completed within the two specified times. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. Time estimation is just iterative estimation. I need to know. Imho, bad implementations of ETC are wildly overused, which allows us to have a good laugh. Also, trust between you and your contractor should be better. Overestimate your time requirements. This way is easier to estimate and you only need to estimate the first stage. I've had car mechanics, plumbers, home builders, etc. Modified 4 years, 6 months ago. Then provide a wide range. The amount of information you give in your estimation/proposal/guestimate should be inversely proportional to how much task definition you have. Example: When is the completion date for room 3 curtains and trimmings? 542), How Intuit democratizes AI development across teams through reusability, We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. They just mean that you havent seen each other in a while. "I'm not sure, I need to check with my team." If you dont get a response, check your states laws. PMs would be responsible for this. Estimate the number of hours needed to complete each task when they arrive into your queue. have to refactor. They havent given me an exact time for it yet, but Ill keep trying! There is a blog entry that outlines how to keep a record of how accurate your previous estimations have gone, and then next time you say to someone "it'll be two weeks", you can look at your previous history and see how long it actually took last time you said "it'll be two weeks". Specially when you feel the pressure it is 18 months and 2 million". Suspicious referee report, are "suggested citations" from a paper mill? Ask Question Asked 4 years, 6 months ago. Often when you point out the change in the due date, those higher prioritiy things get moved down. Is there someone up higher you can ask? To estimate the queries according to their interaction aware scheme because queries are run in batches. Now you have detailed requirements that you can estimate from. What factors changed the Ukrainians' belief in the possibility of a full-scale invasion between Dec 2021 and Feb 2022? You estimate valiantly, "one week". Manage Settings I dont mind an estimate, but I dont like the three-hour disparity between your numbers. If the business case was solid they wouldn't need your estimates. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Centering layers in OpenLayers v4 after layer loading, Am I being scammed after paying almost $10,000 to a tree company not being able to withdraw my profit without paying a fee. Pointing out context is very good, also +1 for the mention of Blizzard. Ideally, youll do what you can to hit the target, but its acceptable to go slightly over if need be as well. I haven't tried it myself, but I'd like to, to see how accurate my estimations are. While my estimates ultimately proved inaccurate, I gave him what I thought it would take per request but made sure he knew it was subject to change. Which Is Correct: Delivered To Or Delivered At? It part of what you are being paid for, so stop copping out with "whenever." And I was glad to get experience in estimating, which I'd always been terrible at. Number 2 is going to require a little more work each week. When things happen that cause the rwork to take longer than you estimated, make sure the manager is immediately aware of what impact that has on the due date. Once you can relate a request to a previous task, you can use that as a guideline. Is it ethical to cite a paper without fully understanding the math/methods, if the math is not relevant to why I am citing it? To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Do you need extra help? Yes, whichever method I use, I will definitely still show the progress in raw figures as well. If you dont find out soon, you will have to research other places. In 2007 Congress added a provision into the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that requires agencies to provide a requester with an estimated date by which the agency expects to complete work on a request, when the requester asks for one. Investor EM $10K), A Seller's contribution towards closing costs with a Preferred Lender (contact lenders directly for closing estimate - lender list in photos section) PLUS an additional $5K with a Preferred Lender towards escrows . And try to recognize that if my answer is "Two weeks! Start treating them with respect and respecting their needs. The target time isnt ideal, but its the least we can do right now. Therefore, a good progress bar / estimated time should be conservative in the estimates presented (reserving time for a potential slow-down) at first. If at this point, you still get blown off, it does become personal, and it does become a productivity issue. Use a three-point estimation. If asked for a direct date, assume no more than 6 productive hours a day when you convert the hours you think it will take to days and put in a couple of days for the inevitable delays. (Are you the same Kyralessa from the joel on software boards?). (Before or After? Determine the accuracy that you need. Explain. Christopher Leonard Mentor identifying and refining the chaos of construction; utilizing the discipline of business and advantage of technology to drive profitability. And then ask yourself: which project does that sound similar to in scope? You cannot simply say: I don't know. For the last semester of your degree, you need to do an internship. . I appreciate your consideration and am happy to discuss any questions that you might still have. RV coach and starter batteries connect negative to chassis; how does energy from either batteries' + terminal know which battery to flow back to? The new feature will probably break some assumptions you made in your code and you start thinking immediately of all the things you might have to refactor. I keep track of the best and worst case averages and compute a range of possible ETCs. Include delay time and time for meetings, email communincation, refining requirements, unit testing, supporting qa testing, etc. Could very old employee stock options still be accessible and viable? This should not wait until they have to ask you why it isn't done yet. can make people more receptive to your ideas. +Not technically the least helpful response. Its not as common as ETA, so its probably best that you dont use it often. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Calculate the estimate based on your model. Because I have been on the job hunt, I believe I will soon have an offer. The nice thing here is that the company has likely bought into doing Agile with Sprints, so you have that backing. If a law is new but its interpretation is vague, can the courts directly ask the drafters the intent and official interpretation of their law? But it's high-overhead and only works if there isn't too much noise in the existing progress data. Duress at instant speed in response to Counterspell. Instead of showing a single ETC, show a range of time. I highly recommend the McConnell book. How do I politely ask about the "urgency" of a work request - i.e. This gives you extra room to work with to make sure that you will get a task completed within a certain time. ", This. Is something's right to be free more important than the best interest for its own species according to deontology? The idea is to compute the ETC from the last 'n' seconds or minutes (like your second idea). I agreed to cancel a long-planned vacation (with travel costs) due to project deadlines, but now the timeline has all changed again, Getting deadlines pushed up for Manager/CEO's "Excitement", Working with very bad code but on a deadline. "Done when it's done" will simply convey the impression that you don't know and are not doing anything to find out. A more robust technique for this might be to use the Kalman filter, whose purpose is exactly this: Its purpose is to use measurements observed over time, containing @Darius.V, you make a good point. Indicate when progress has stalled - although if progress consistently stalls and then continues, we should be able to deal with that. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. I always end up giving estimates that I later realize I cannot fulfill. One that I've used is this Free Online PERT Calculator. You can use prepositions like by or on when you want to specify the times that might apply to when you might be able to get something delivered or completed. If the requirements are not-clear, make sure you document your understanding of them and the functionality that you plan to deliver. Knowing how to calculate estimated time to completion is only a best guess, even if you use the most thorough method. The optimal weights for the linear combination can be fitted using linear regression (a one-liner in R). However, sometimes we need to know something by a certain date. Make sure you understand what is being asked. Is it added to each line item? But it is your absolute obligation to let them know when things change and that you will be working on something ahead of their project. A target isnt always set in stone, and its possible for you to move it around it you need to accommodate certain changes to a deadline or structure.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'grammarhow_com-banner-1','ezslot_9',107,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-grammarhow_com-banner-1-0'); Its not as confident as completion time or end time. It works well because it gives you a target, but it doesnt always require you to hit it. I billed for all the time I spent estimating. But "it'll be done when it is done" is only one step up from those. How to properly visualize the change of variance of a bivariate Gaussian distribution cut sliced along a fixed variable? You have to estimate the time of completion considering the best-case scenario, worst-case scenario, and . Seriously. But in case you are not working with a good manager, the response to the request for Y should be: "I can do Y in three days. Its so easy nowadays to blow off technology. Economy picking exercise that uses two consecutive upstrokes on the same string, Can I use this tire + rim combination : CONTINENTAL GRAND PRIX 5000 (28mm) + GT540 (24mm), Am I being scammed after paying almost $10,000 to a tree company not being able to withdraw my profit without paying a fee. Make it broad. . Because the time was broken down so minutely, I could tell early on if I was slipping. How to accurately measure estimate without design as a Front End developer in agile? Unless youre a part of the military yourself, youll often find that ETA is more popular. Being on good terms with your neighbors is important, but sometimes it can be difficult. Don't do this! This is quite a hefty completion time! How much does Joe work? Better: go speak to him personally to try to find out this information, using the same polite verbiage, above. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Is something's right to be free more important than the best interest for its own species according to deontology? Not the answer you're looking for? let me know that they need to assess the situation and come up with a solution. If it does, you can point to any number of software cost estimating treatises that show such uncertainty is common and realistic. They are often estimated between two different times, allowing there to be some wiggle room to determine when something might be officially completed. Manage Settings the way a sentence is written becomes especially important . The requirements are unclear. I think the target time is a bit skewed. That is something that you should never say. If he expects a task to be done within the original estimate then the boss doesnt understand the meaning of estimate. Unrivaled Mac notes apps for fuss-free note-taking, 6 Actionable Tips for Improving Your Websites SEO, Copyright 2023 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes. In todays office, its just a fact: People blow off deadlines. From this perspective, the answer is obvious - you need to do better task tracking and management. . As we mentioned, estimated completion time refers to the time a service request is expected to be finished. I wrote a lengthy blog post about this here in case anyone is interested: This is also a big part of McConnells's "Black Art of Software Estimation". How do you get your contractor to respond with a deadline? Pick up the phone and talk to them. Assign values and error ranges (+/-) to each value. Estimates given at the coffee machine will (like the coffee) come back to haunt you. If you go over the deadline specified, you missed the point of by. Naturally, this could put you in your bosss bad books, so be careful with the times you set here! Really, you can tell that some people cant take the silence. By the way, all of the above responses assume you are 'senior level' worker responsible for their own scheduling. Reasonable people should respond in a timely way. The problem here is this: let's say you and Joe made time estimates for the same task (but between two separate employees, unaware of both estimates at one time). Your new game-changing quick reference tool is just a click away. Is Completed or Has Been Completed Whats the Difference? The screenshot below shows a dispatcher's view of service professionals' live status. - adam. I would wait longer, but usually someone will crack before that. Read more about Martin here. If so, I would like to hire you, and I would like to put it in writing.. Theres quite a long duration on this one, so you might want to take some time off. It gives the answer you want, it's fairly factual and neutral in tone, and it suggests that an estimate could be made at some point, but certainly not right now here at the coffee machine without a clear picture of what would it actually mean to do the thing he's asking about. @DJClayworth does it help you in any way if you get told an arbitrary date, you make plans based on that date, and on that date find out the reality of "it will be done when it's done"? If you are asking for something and you need it by a specific date, be crystal clear.
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