Software development schedules
22nd November 2008
Joel Spolsky has an interesting (and useful) post on evidence-based scheduling, as he calls that approach. The post discusses an approach to estimate project volume and key dates (such as milestones and release) based on prior performance of each of the project developers. As Joel argues, this approach provides several benefits, and – among others – allows releasing the software product on the date planned.
I would recommend learning more about “evidence-based scheduling” to anybody who is somehow involved into software development.
Also, for me personally it was useful to read the preceding article by Joel (called painless software schedules), which summarizes some basic ideas you should keep in mind while trying to develop some piece of software (mostly from the manager’s viewpoint). If you are going to read that “obsolete” article – better do so before reading evidence-based scheduling.