Appendix F. Estimation

Round numbers are always false.

—Samuel Johnson English critic

Appendix Learning Objectives

After reading this appendix, you will be able to:

  • Explain the relationship between resource loading and activity duration

  • Use any of the six activity duration estimation methods

Note

Most of the material in this appendix is an abridged version of Chapter 5 from my earlier work Effective Project Management: Traditional, Adaptive, Extreme, Third Edition (Wiley, 2003). It is presented here for completeness so that this book may be used as a text for an introductory course in software project management. For courses requiring more detail on these topics the earlier work may be used as a companion text.

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