Software estimation, despised by many, is one of the most contentious subjects in the world of software development. Constantly creating tension between developers, project managers, product managers, clients, budget holders and stakeholders. Although there seems to be an abundance of information on the subject, the debate is far from over. Ongoing discussions include whether estimates are an art or a science, best practices, why they go wrong and new ideas such as the no-estimates movement.

But when things go wrong what’s to be blamed: process or perspective?

Prerequisite

Outline
This talk is split in 3 sections.

In the first section, I discuss the nature of modern application development and in particular two approaches: project-centric and product-centric application development. I tie those into the modern B2B purchase journey that represents enterprise application development so that participants get an understanding of the end to end process: from budget setting to application conception to delivery to decommission and how this influences everyone involved, including budget setting.

In the second section, I draw from my experience being part of the Digital Solutions team in FFW where I am picking up technical pre-sales activities for new projects. Part of the job is to provide budget indications during the RFP process, the worst possible moment because it’s the moment we have the least amount of information about the work at hand. I will present some of the techniques and best practices I have used to quantify effort, manage risk and minimise uncertainty.

Finally, in the third section, I dive into suggestions for aspiring technical teams on how to encourage their clients to shift from project-centric development into product-centric development. Specifically I discuss behaviours that should be adopted internally to instil trust to the client, changes that need to be made for successful delivery and early warning signs to evaluate if you are on the right track.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this talk participants will get an understanding of:

- The differences in processes and expectations for project-centric and product-centric application development

- End to end modern B2B purchase journey which represents enterprise application development

- The best practices for budget estimation for project-centric application development

- The best practices for budget estimation for product-centric application development

- Suggestions for product-centric enablement internally and at the client