I have been working my way through Bruce Eckel’s collection of software related interviews recently. A couple of weeks before Mr Eckel posted these I recently realized that I had stopped listening to most of the podcasts to which I subscribe, except for the episodes that were interviews. So when I saw this set of interviews I was quite happy to have a good bit of listening material to ease me into my new car based commute.
I have not yet listened to every interview in the set but the ones I have listened to so far are really good. This collection of interviews is many hours of listening but if you can find the time you will not be disappointed.
Today I am listening to Tim Lister of Peopleware fame. Peopleware is one of those book I have been meaning to read for years but after listening to this interview I think I might start with his newer book Waltzing with Bears about managing risk on projects. While talking about how most projects are estimated Mr Lister says:
Someone says “What’s the estimate?” and you say “38.5 work months”. I have taken enough statistics to know that the .5 is a joke, and the 8 is a joke and the 3 is a fraud. Other than that 38.5 is perfect.
That pretty much sums up every project estimate I have ever been involved with.