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in reply to Improving Your Ability to Estimate

It made me chuckle to read about a programmer using 4x5 cards to track time estimates. How much time would you estimate it would take to convert your card system to a computerized database? :-)
I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

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Re^2: Improving Your Ability to Estimate
by dws (Chancellor) on Feb 12, 2005 at 16:25 UTC

    How much time would you estimate it would take to convert your card system to a computerized database? :-)

    At work the data ends up in an excel spreadsheet so that we can calculate our velocity (an eXtreme Programming thing, which is basically a measure of how much work a team can do per volume time). We use our velocity when planning forward. We only plan as much work as we've been able to complete in the prior iteration. This keeps us from getting overloaded.

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Re^2: Improving Your Ability to Estimate
by petdance (Parson) on Feb 17, 2005 at 18:40 UTC
    . How much time would you estimate it would take to convert your card system to a computerized database? :-)

    But why? What benefit would be served? Not everything has to be done in bits & bytes. Sometimes pencil & paper, or post-its, or scribbles on a whiteboard, are the best tools for the job. In this case, having to go into a computer to enter the information probably DECREASES the likelihood that the data will be captured.

    This time tracking task is not necessarily a nail for the computer hammer.

    xoxo,
    Andy

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      But why? What benefit would be served?

      Save some trees? :-)

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
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