Momentum Developer Con 2025 - How To Better Developer Estimates

Let's face it, creating estimates for tasks is not an exact science. Whether it is points, hours, level of effort, or whatever else the next fad is, it all mostly boils down to what feels like a shot in the dark.

Join my session to find out a few lessons learned, tips, tricks, and strategies for creating accurate and timely estimates on your developer tasks. I'll share my experiences for creating the majority of estimates at my company for the past 18 years. I'd estimate that the amount of estimates I have created is more than 500 or so...see what I did there?

At the end of the day, if you can create better estimates, than maybe your project managers will end up becoming another one of your long time friends.

1. How to Win Friends and Influence... Better Developer Estimates By Brian McKeiver

2. Co-Owner, BizStream .NET dev since 1999 , now Solution Architect Focus: Enterprise websites powered by CMS Microsoft Azure MVP (App PaaS & AI Platform) Kentico MVP (Traditional CMS) Kontent.ai MVP (Headless CMS) About Me @ mcbeev /in/ brianmckeiver

3. We’re an award-winning digital agency focused on brands, websites, and products. We specialize in complex integrations and custom designs that deliver results, and we’re one of the most respected Kentico partners in the world. We make digital flow.

4. Why Are We Here Why does estimation matter? How can we estimate tasks? Have some fun. By the way I need a few volunteers

5. 6 ways to make people like you Become genuinely interested in other people. Smile. Remember that a person's name is to that person the most important sound. Be a good listener. ... Talk in terms of the other person's interests. Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

6. # HTWFaIBDE

7. Why Do We Estimate?

8. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

9. Good Estimates Possible? This @ exxonmobile chart from 1982 predicted that in 2019 our atmospheric CO2 level would reach about 415 ppm. Raising the global temperature roughly 0.9 degrees C.

10. Earth crossed the 415 ppm threshold May 11 th 2019 and broke 0.9 degrees C in 2017. (source)

11. How Does this Connect to Winning Friends? PMs / Business people / Stakeholders all want to feel like they can control and influence getting things done. They make business plans and schedules based from Level of effort Someone somewhere needs to see a pretty chart , right?

12. How We Make Estimates In  software development , effort  estimation  is the process of predicting the realistic amount of effort (expressed in terms of hours, complexity points, or money) required to develop software based on incomplete, uncertain and noisy input. In  software development , effort  estimation  is the process of predicting the realistic amount of effort (expressed in terms of hours, complexity points, or money) required to develop software based on incomplete, uncertain and noisy input.

13. Why It’s All Bullshit Where the Stories are made up, and the Points don’t matter.

14. How Long Does it Take?

15. Scope Changes?

16. Scope Changes?

17. Is There a Better Way?

18. What is a DXP?

19. Volunteers?

20. Actual time: It took the developer about 8 hours to complete this

21. Where to Start: Did You Break it Down? Can you componentize it? Split it into separate pieces?

22. Navigation Jumbotron List of Articles How Many Others?

23. Do You Know Enough? It’s ok to say: “I don't know” “Give me X hours to research it.”

24. Factors of a Good Estimate @ mcbeev

25. @ mcbeev Factors of a Good Estimate II

26. @ mcbeev Factors of a Good Estimate III

27. What Else Do You Have? Miss Anything?

28. Make Better Estimates: My “Half-live” Method Pick a number that seems ludicrously high, and ask… Can you do it in X hours ?

29. Half it, or Not… Can you do it in 80 hours? Can you do it in 40 hours? Can you do it in 20 hours? Repeat, until confident answer I can in 24 hours

30. The $64,000 Question Does it Really Work?

31. 175% 150% 125% 100% 75%

32. Don’t Ignore History Go back and check your estimates. Consistency matters a lot in this equation.

33. Happy PM == Happy Work Life Cheesiest picture I could find of people working together. Definitely a PM 

34. Closing Point Takeaways Try out my Half-life method for estimating next time. Review the “Factors of a Good Estimates”. Be Consistent and your teammates will appreciate it.

35. [email protected] @mcbeev https://www.mcbeev.com Thanks!