In the estimating discussion there is a popular notion that we can't possibly estimate something we haven't done before. So we have to explore - using the customers money by the way - to discover what we don't know.
The when we hear about we've never done this before and estimating is a waste of time, think about the title of the post.
Everything's a Remix
Other than inventing new physics all software development has been done in some form or another before. The only true original thing in the universe is the Big Bang. Everything else is derived from something that came before.
Now we may not know about this thing in the past, but that's a different story. It as done before in some form, but we didn't realize it. There are endless examples of copying ideas from the past is thinking they are innovative, new and break through. The iPad and all laptops came from Allan Kay's 1972 paper, "A personal computer for childern of all ages." Even how the touch screen on the iPhone works was done before Apple announced it as the biggest breakthrough in the history of computing.
In our formal defense acquisition paradigm there are many programs that are research. This looks like this flow. Making estiimates about the effort and duration is difficult, so blocks of money are provided to find out. But these are not product production or systems development processes. The Systems Design and Development (SDD) is between MS-B and MS-C. We don't confuse exploring from developing. Want to explore work on a DARPA program. Want to develop, work in post-MS-B and know somethiong about what came before.
The Pre-milestone A works is to identify what capabilities will be needed in the final product. The DARPA programs I work are even further to the left of Milestone A.
On the other end of the spectrum from this formal process, a collection of sticky notes on the wall could have similar flow of maturity. But the principles are still the same.
So How To Estimate in the Presence of We've Never Done This Before
- The first thing to do is go find someone who has. Hire them, buy them dinner, pick their brain.
- The next would be to find an example of what you want to build and take it apart. This is what every product designer does. In the fashion business they just copy. In the software business they copy and make it better.
- Long ago I had an idea, along with several others, of writing a book of reusable code in our domain. Algorithms that could be reused. The IBM FORTRAN Scientific Subroutine Library was our model. The remix of the code elements is now built into hardware chips for doing what we did - process signals from radar systems. The Collected Algorithms of the ACM is a similar idea.
Here's a critical concept - we can't introduce anything new until we're fluent in the language of our domain, and we do that through emulation.† This means for us to move forward we have to have done something like this in the past. So if we haven't done something like this in the past, don't know anyone who has, or can't find an example of it being done, we will have little success being innovative. As well, we will hopelessly fail in trying to estimate the cost, schedule, and probability of delivering capabilities. In other words we'll fail and blame it on the estimating process and assume that we'll be successful if we stop estimating.
So stop thinking about we can't know what we don't know and start thinking someone has done this before and we just need to find that someone, somewhere, something. Nobody starts out being original, we need copying to get started. Once copied, transformation is the next step. With the copy we can estimate size and effort. We can now transform it into something that is better, and since we now know about the thing we copied, we have a reference class. Yes that famous Reference Class Forecasting used by all mature estimating shops. With the copy and it's transformed item, we can them combine ideas into something new. The Alto from Xerox and then the Xerox Star for executives, was the basis of the Lisa and Mac.
The End
You can estimate almost anything, and every software system if you do some home work and suspend the belief it can't be done. WHY? because it's not your money, and those providing you the money have an interest in several things about their money - what will it cost, when will you be done, and using the revenue side of the balanced sheet, when will they break even on the exchange of money for value? This is the principle of every for profit business on the planet. The not-for-profits have to pay the electric bill as well, as do the non-profits. So everyone, everywhere needs to know the cost of that value they asked us top produce BEFORE we've spent all their money and ran out of time to reach the target market for that pesky break even equation.
Anyone tells you otherwise is not in the business of business, but just on the expense side and that means not on the decision making side either, just labor doing what they're told to do - which is a noble profession, but unlikely to influence how decisions are made.
The notion of decision rights is the basis of governance. When you hear about doing or not doing something in the absence of who needs this information, ask who needs this information and is it your decision right to decide to fulfill or not fulfill the request for that information? As my colleague, retired NASA Cost Director, says follow the money, that's where you find the decider.
† Everything is a remix, Part 3, Kirby Furgeson.
