Measuring Time and Effort

Whether you’re building software, managing projects, or just driving from one place to another—you’re measuring time and effort in some way. Measuring time and effort happens in all shapes and sizes. When driving somewhere you’re most likely going on experience and deciding to leave when you assume you have enough time given a set of variables such as route, traffic, and weather. When building software the measuring is a bit more specific and likely written down somewhere in some form. But who decides how much to measure? How specific and precise to get?

We’re going to dig into the varying ways to measure time and effort in a variety of contexts. Looking at our collective experiences and the experiences and teachings of those in a few different industries we will have plenty to discuss and debate on this topic. You will hopefully leave with a new perspective or idea on when, how and how much to measure.

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Slides prepared and formatted for Refresh Savannah on Sept 16, 2014.

References:

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britain%3F_Statistical_Self-Similarity_and_Fractional_Dimension
- http://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/ams214/Winter09/foundingpapers/Mandelbrot1967.pdf
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/how-to-make-accurate-time-estimates/
- http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_01.htm

Transcript

1. Refresh Savannah @ErikReagan Measuring Time & Effort How and How Much
2. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
3. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
4. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
5. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
6. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah “Geographical curves are so involved in their detail that their lengths are often infinite or, rather, undefinable. However, many are statistically "self- similar," meaning that each portion can be considered a reduced-scale image of the whole. In that case, the degree of complication can be described by a quantity D that has many properties of a "dimension," though it is fractional; that is, it exceeds the value unity associated with the ordinary, rectifiable, curves.”
7. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
8. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
9. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
10. The Coastline Paradox
11. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How do we measure?
12. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How do we measure?
13. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How do we estimate?
14. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah 1. Bottom-Up 2. Top-Down 3. Comparative 4. Parametric 5. Three-point
15. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah Estimating ➞ Measuring
16. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah Fudge Ratio
17. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah 1. Start guestimating things 2. Write down your guestimate 3. Do 4. Write down the actual time spent 5. Calculate your "fudge ratio"
18. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah Estimate and perform a task
19. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah 20 15hrs estimated hrs actual 1.33 fudge ratio
20. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah Estimate a task
21. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah 20 hrs estimated new hrs estimated 26.6 1.33 fudge ratio
22. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah How much do we estimate?
23. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah
24. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah The One-Sitting Rule
25. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah Compensate for Experience
26. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah The 40-70 Rule
27. @ErikReagan Refresh Savannah an accurate Fudge Ratio an appropriate unit of measurement the optimal estimate
28. Refresh Savannah @ErikReagan Thanks! @ErikReagan @FocusLabLLC