Examine what you are going to have to write, make your best guess at how long this will take, and
multiply by 200%.
Remember that the first 10% of a project will take 90% of the time. The remaining 90% of the project will
take another 90% of the time.
If you are going to have more than one person on the project team, remember the Mythical Man-MonthPrinciple: you cannot calculate time required by taking time for one person and dividing by the number ofpeople. The real answer is always more than this. If it will take one person, say, 12 months, then twopeople will not finish the job in 6 months, it may be more like 7 months. As you add people, eventuallyyou reach a point where adding more people INCREASES the amount of time to complete the project. (I callthis the "Computer Sciences Corporation principle". Their philosophy is that no programming task is sosimple that it requires less than 50 programmers, 20 testers, 30 documentors, 15 administrative
assistants, and six levels of management.)
multiply by 200%.
Remember that the first 10% of a project will take 90% of the time. The remaining 90% of the project will
take another 90% of the time.
If you are going to have more than one person on the project team, remember the Mythical Man-MonthPrinciple: you cannot calculate time required by taking time for one person and dividing by the number ofpeople. The real answer is always more than this. If it will take one person, say, 12 months, then twopeople will not finish the job in 6 months, it may be more like 7 months. As you add people, eventuallyyou reach a point where adding more people INCREASES the amount of time to complete the project. (I callthis the "Computer Sciences Corporation principle". Their philosophy is that no programming task is sosimple that it requires less than 50 programmers, 20 testers, 30 documentors, 15 administrative
assistants, and six levels of management.)