Does anyone know any easy way to give time estimations.

How long do you think it will take based on experience, add 3 of whatever unit your guess was in.

@bkwilliams the trouble is sometimes some work requires research and learning. How can one give estimations for that.

@bkwilliams thats too long, can you do it in recommendation - 5 half units?

I've always been instructed to know your multiplier, estimate how long you think it will take.. Multiple it by.. 5?

If that is consistently too long, then reduce your number.

Better to under promise and over deliver

@tylerhartwig Yup, I do it like that also: make a rough guesstimate based on experience and gut feeling (depending on the amount of unknowns such as required learning/research) and then multiply by a constant. I'm currently at a 2.5.

@call-a3 I don't think it should ever go below 2 though

Try doing 3 eye rolls before you answer.. helps me at least *eye roll*

When ever I was asked for an estimate, $ if its something I hadn't done before, I'd always tell them I need some time to come up with a plan, so that I can give them a more accurate estimate. Then I'd spend a little time researching X, and the various tools that would be best to use. Then I'd rely partially on previous experience to tell me how long it would take me to do the parts I already know how to do. I'd check to see if I have any reusable code that could be used for the project, to save a little time, then id add maybe an hour or two a day to the estimate to cover debugging and troubleshooting. Depending on how much I needed to research, Id also add anywhere up to a week purely for research and further planning. sounds kinda wacky how I wrote it, but I have a full checklist I go through for every stage of the dev process from consult to planning, reqs gathering, design, dev, testing. Its worked well for me & I have never missed a deadline so far, and have always over delivered.

@cheat117 I can do 1/x of that in est/2 time. What parts of the requirements do you want to remove or delay?

@bkwilliams none, we have found more from the business with a shortened deadline.