Test Estimation

November 1, 2018

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What is Test Estimation?

Test estimation is a method of estimating the resources to be used in achieving deadline of a project. A test estimation is very important in assessing budget, manpower, time and other resources that is supposed to be allocated to the project.

Points to Estimate:

• General insurance
• Manpower - Depending on the type of project, one needs to figure out the skills and domain experience required to begin working on the assigned project.
• Time - Every project has to be allotted a time frame within which it has to be completed. Hence the team needs to decide upon a reasonable time frame based on previous project experience.
• Other resources - Resources comprise of a lot of things like environment needed to build a project, number of people, number of systems, tools etc.
• Budget - Based on the above arrangement of things, a company decides on the budget to be allocated to the project at hand.

Steps to be followed in the process of estimation:

• Break work into small pieces - A large project is usually divided into small pieces for ease of understanding. Usually a project is divided into different set of modules – module 1, module 2 and so on. Each task may sub tasks as well. Further, the modules need to be divided among the team members according to their relevant experience and knowledge.
• Three point estimation - In this technique the idea is to assign priority to a task on the basis of past experience or a best possible guess. A value is assigned as per estimation made for each task. The cases could be best case, most likely, worst case.
• Functional point method - The idea of this estimation technique is to assess the project in three parameters - size, duration and cost. The first estimate is about the size of the project to determine the nature of the project – complex, medium, simple and assign priority or weightage to the project. So we can summarise function point analysis with the help of a formulae that helps to generate the right results.

  Total Effort = Total function points * Estimate defined per function point

• Validation - The final step is to get approval from the higher management. After a session of discussion about estimate plan a consensus is formed regarding implementation of the plan.

A plan may go through a lot of upheavals due to absence of required members at the time of planning, an unpredictable situation may arise like a member leaving the job at that point of time due to some unforeseen circumstances and so on.

The only approach one must follow in pursuit of a successful goal is consistency and perseverance to proceed despite of all the odds.