For custom software, when you are giving your customer an estimate, how much detail do you tend to include?
Do you:
- break it down into small tasks that can be done in a few hours and give them the full list?
- give them one big number and work towards that? And if so does that come from a more detailed estimate that you don't need to show them?
- Do you break it up into big "phases" and give them a number of hours for each phase?
This isn't for fixed bid contracts or anything, just more of a "We think this will cost you X hours at $Y an hour" kind of situation.
Best Answer
You don't want to be too detailed or too vague - both will give you problems.
Too vague and you won't have a clear idea of what's involved yourself either and that will cause problems when something unforeseen crops up.
Too detailed and you run the very real risk of information overload. You might also get someone questioning every single thing you do.
What is "just right" will depend on the client, but you need to have enough detail such that they are confident that you know what you are doing and aren't trying to rip them off. Splitting the work into phases is a good way of achieving this. Each phase should be a self contained set of work that can be delivered. (You can split the phase into smaller chunks for your development processes).
This also gives the client the chance to review progress and re-prioritise the remaining work as necessary.