{"id":5003174,"date":"2015-12-16T21:53:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T05:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aadev22.local\/?post_type=aa_glossary&#038;p=5003174"},"modified":"2023-03-12T12:41:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T19:41:02","slug":"estimation","status":"publish","type":"aa_glossary","link":"https:\/\/agilealliance.org\/glossary\/estimation\/","title":{"rendered":"Estimation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In software development, an \u201cestimate,\u201d in the usual sense, consists of a quantified evaluation of the effort necessary to carry out a given development task; this is most often expressed in terms of duration.<\/p>\n<p>The intent is to aggregate many such individual estimates, so as to obtain an indication of the overall duration, effort, or cost of a software project.<\/p>\n<h2>Common Pitfalls<\/h2>\n<p>Even within the Agile community, one finds many distinct schools of thought concerning the theory and practice of estimation. However, a broad consensus has emerged around a few typical mistakes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>estimates necessarily embody a component of uncertainty; \u201cpoint\u201d estimates are generally considered inadequate insofar as they fail to reflect that uncertainty<\/li>\n<li>estimates are not the same as commitments; for instance, blaming a developer for taking 3 days what he estimated he would finish in 2 is a counter-productive attitude, usually leading to overinflated estimates in future<\/li>\n<li>an estimate isn\u2019t a final answer, it reflects the information that was on hand at the time of communicating it; it should always be permissible to update an estimate in light of new information, either upward or downwards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In software development, an &#8220;estimate&#8221; is the evaluation of the effort necessary to carry out a given development task; this is most often expressed in terms of duration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6000331,"featured_media":8067461,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[908],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5003174","aa_glossary","type-aa_glossary","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-process"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- All in One SEO 4.9.10 - aioseo.com -->\n\t<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An &quot;estimate&quot; 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