Shipping Software on time and on budget

It’s almost axiomatic that estimating software projects is hard. Stories of I.T. project overruns are commonplace. There’s a whole software crisis devoted to it. The canonical book on the subject calls it the Black Art – one that we’re not good at:

The typical software organization is struggling to avoid estimates that are incorrect by 100% or more¹

Nonetheless, it’s quite feasible to estimate even complex projects to within 5-10% accuracy. You can reliably ship software on time, and on budget. In my experience, the ability to do so is what separates senior developers, and mature teams, from their struggling counterparts. It’s a tough business. Ultimately, if you can’t ship on time, it’s difficult to survive. I want to look at that today.

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