Re: How do you estimate projects
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:26 pm
When I read that, this popped into my head: I actually wouldn't go with this approach with a 'client' -- only full time employers (thus far) so I know I'm getting paid. I've tried with both and like you suggest, most 'clients' jump ship after a week of not seeing any tangible, without pay.One, the client might not even use you on the project, so it could be all for nothing
If I ever do it again, it'll be with a advanced payment and I will deliver the specs, which they can later use on a developer in India to shed precise details on what needs to be done, etc.
Agreed. Iterative/waterfall is a nice approach. Something Joomla really trains you to do, is decompose a complex system into a series of compnents, which can more easily be broken into individual actions and like a waterfall, become more and more atomic. This works well with Gantt charts I find, as I can quickly give a broad estimate based on components involved and iteratively refine the list with more and more sub-cases, so a client sees in real time (basically) what or how long sub-project A takes in comparison to project C and they can shift priorities easily too. I currently use FogBugz as it supports this type of development nicely.Anyway, even when I do spec writing, even though I try to do a great job, I have to kind of cut it short and apply the Pareto Principle here (80/20 rule) so that I can get an estimate out and get some cash in here.
Cheers,
Alex