One of the most difficult things for software engineers to do is estimate a software task. As a group, software engineers have had little or no training in estimating and scheduling and tend to be overly optimistic. So it's not surprising that software projects more often than not, miss their schedules.

As a result, Management frequently imposes delivery dates for new products. With the end date given, the project team is then forced to "schedule backwards". Schedules developed in this manner are almost always unrealistic since the project team must estimate task duration based on time available rather than time required. Not surprisingly, scheduled-backwards projects almost always are late and the resulting products are of lower quality.

This seminar provides an overview of proven techniques for estimating and scheduling that can dramtically improve accuracy of estimates and schedules...