Shopper estimates of the total value of items in their basket

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

Agile development processes break down the work that needs to be done into a collection of tasks (which may be called stories or some other name). A task, whose implementation time may be measured in hours or a few days, is itself composed of a collection of subtasks (which may in turn be composed of subsubtasks, and so on down).

When asked to estimate the time needed to implement a task, a developer may settle on a value by adding up estimates of the effort needed to implement the subtasks thought to be involved. If this process is performed in the mind of the developer (i.e., not by writing down a list of subtask estimates), the accuracy of the result may be affected by the characteristics of cognitive arithmetic.

Humans have two cognitive systems for processing quantities, the approximate number system (which has been found to be present in the brain of many creatures), and language. Researchers studying the approximate number system often ask subjects to estimate the number of dots in an image; I recently discovered studies of number processing that used language.

In a study by Benjamin Scheibehenne, 966 shoppers at the checkout counter in a grocery shop were asked to estimate the total value of the items in their shopping basket; a subset of 421 subjects were also asked to estimate the number of items in their basket (this subset were also asked if they used a shopping list). The actual price and number of items was obtained after checkout.

There are broad similarities between shopping basket estimation and estimating task implementation time, e.g., approximate idea of number of items and their cost. Does an analysis of the shopping data suggest ideas for patterns that might be present in software task estimate data?

The left plot below shows shopper estimated total item value against actual, with fitted regression line (red) and estimate==actual (grey); the right plot shows shopper estimated number of items in their basket against actual, with fitted regression line (red) and estimate==actual (grey) (code+data):

Left: Shopper estimated total value against actual, with fitted regression line; right: shopper estimated number of items against actual, with fitted regression line.

The model fitted to estimated total item value is: totalActual=1.4totalEstimate^{0.93}, which differs from software task estimates/actuals in always underestimating over the range measured; the exponent value, 0.93, is at the upper range of those seen for software task estimates.

The model fitted to estimated number of items in the basket is: itemsActual=1.8itemsEstimate^{0.75}. This pattern, of underestimating small values and overestimating large values is seen in software task estimation, but the exponent of 0.75 is much smaller.

Including the estimated number of items in the shopping basket, Nguess, in a model for total value produces a slightly better fitting model: totalActual=1.4totalEstimate^{0.92}e^{0.003itemsEstimate}, which explains 83% of the variance in the data (use of a shopping list had a relatively small impact).

The accuracy of a software task implementation estimate based on estimating its subtasks dependent on identifying all the subtasks, or having a good enough idea of the number of subtasks. The shopping basket study found a pattern of inaccuracies in estimates of the number of recently collected items, which has been seen before. However, adding Nguess to the Shopping model only reduced the unexplained variance by a few percent.

Would the impact of adding an estimate of the number of subtasks to models of software task estimates also only be a few percent? A question to add to the already long list of unknowns.

Like task estimates, round numbers were often given as estimate values; see code+data.

The same study also included a laboratory experiment, where subjects saw a sequence of 24 numbers, presented one at a time for 0.5 seconds each. At the end of the sequence, subjects were asked to type in their best estimate of the sum of the numbers seen (other studies asked subjects to type in the mean). Each subject saw 75 sequences, with feedback on the mean accuracy of their responses given after every 10 sequences. The numbers were described as the prices of items in a shopping basket. The values were drawn from a distribution that was either uniform, positively skewed, negatively skewed, unimodal, or bimodal. The sequential order of values was either increasing, decreasing, U-shaped, or inversely U-shaped.

Fitting a regression model to the lab data finds that the distribution used had very little impact on performance, and the sequence order had a small impact; see code+data.

Over/under estimation factor for ‘most estimates’

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

When asked to estimate the time taken to perform a software development related task, people regularly over or under estimate. What range of over/under estimation falls within the bounds of the term ‘most estimates’, i.e., the upper/lower bounds of the ratio Actual/Estimate (an overestimate occurs when Actual/Estimate < 1, an underestimate when 1 < Actual/Estimate)?

On Twitter, I have been citing a factor of two for over/under time estimates. This factor of two involves some assumptions and a personal interpretation.

The following analysis is based on the two major software task effort estimation datasets: SiP and CESAW. The tasks in both datasets are for internal projects (i.e., no tendering against competitors), and require at most a few hours work.

The following analysis is based on the SiP data.

Of the 8,252 unique tasks in the SiP data, 30% are underestimates, 37% exact, and 33% overestimates.

How do we go about calculating bounds for the over/under factor of most estimates (a previous post discussed calculating an accuracy metric over all estimates)?

A simplistic approach is to average over each of the overestimated and underestimated tasks. The plot below shows hours estimated against the ratio actual/estimated, for each task (code+data):

Actual/estimate ratio for SiP tasks having a given Estimate value.

Averaging the over/under estimated tasks separately (using the geometric mean) gives 0.47 and 1.9 respectively, i.e., tasks are over/under estimated by a factor of two.

This approach fails to take into account the number of estimates that are over/under/equal, i.e., it ignores likelihood information.

A regression model takes into account the distribution of values, and we could adopt the fitted model’s prediction interval as the over/under confidence intervals. The prediction interval is the interval within which other observations are expected to fall, with some probability (R’s predict function uses one standard deviation).

The plot below shows a fitted regression model and prediction intervals at one standard deviation (68.3%) and two standard deviations (95%); the faint grey line shows Estimate == Actual (code+data):

Fitted regression model and prediction intervals at 68.3% and 95%.

The fitted model tilts down from the upward direction of the Estimate == Actual line, consequently the over/under estimation factor depends on the size of the estimate. The table below lists the over/under estimation factor for low/high estimates at one & two standard deviations (68.3 and 95% probability).

People like simple answers (i.e., single values) and the mean value is a commonly used technique of summarising many values. The task estimate values are unevenly distributed and weighting the mean by the distribution of estimated values is more representative than, say, an evenly distributed set of estimates. The 5th and 6th columns in the table below list the weighted means at one/two standard deviations (the CESAW columns are the values for all projects in the CESAW data).

          1 sd           2 sd        Weighted mean       CESAW
       Low    High   Low    High     1 sd    2 sd     1 sd   2 sd
Over   0.56   0.24   0.27   0.11     0.46    0.25     0.29   0.1
Under  2.4    1.0    4.9    2.0      2.00    4.1      2.4    6.5

The weighted means for over/under estimates are close to a factor of two of the actual (divide/multiply) within one standard deviation (68.3%), and a factor of four within two standard deviations (95%).

Why choose to give the one standard deviation factor, rather than the two? People talk of “most estimates”, but what percentage range does ‘most’ map to? I have tended to think of ‘most’ as more than two-thirds, e.g., at least one standard deviation (a recent study suggests that ‘most’ usage peaks at 80-85%), and I think of two standard deviations as ‘nearly all’ (i.e., 95%; there are probably people who call this ‘most’).

Perhaps a between two and four is a more appropriate answer (particularly since the bounds are wider for the CESAW data). Suggestions welcome.

Evaluating estimation performance

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

What is the best way to evaluate the accuracy of an estimation technique, given that the actual values are known?

Estimates are often given as point values, and accuracy scoring functions (for a sequence of estimates) have the form S=1/n sum{i=1}{n}{S(E_i, A_i)}, where n is the number of estimated values, E_i the estimates, and A_i the actual values; smaller S is better.

Commonly used scoring functions include:

  • S(E, A)=(E-A)^2, known as squared error (SE)
  • S(E, A)=delim{|}{E-A}{|}, known as absolute error (AE)
  • S(E, A)=delim{|}{E-A}{|}/A, known as absolute percentage error (APE)
  • S(E, A)=delim{|}{E-A}{|}/E, known as relative error (RE)

APE and RE are special cases of: S(E, A)=delim{|}{1-(A/E)^{beta}}{|}, with beta=-1 and beta=1 respectively.

Let’s compare three techniques for estimating the time needed to implement some tasks, using these four functions.

Assume that the mean time taken to implement previous project tasks is known, E_m. When asked to implement a new task, an optimist might estimate 20% lower than the mean, E_o=E_m*0.8, while a pessimist might estimate 20% higher than the mean, E_p=E_m*1.2. Data shows that the distribution of the number of tasks taking a given amount of time to implement is skewed, looking something like one of the lines in the plot below (code):

Two example distributions of number of tasks taking a given amount of time to implement.

We can simulate task implementation time by randomly drawing values from a distribution having this shape, e.g., zero-truncated Negative binomial or zero-truncated Weibull. The values of E_o and E_p are calculated from the mean, E_m, of the distribution used (see code for details). Below is each estimator’s score for each of the scoring functions (the best performing estimator for each scoring function in bold; 10,000 values were used to reduce small sample effects):

    SE   AE   APE   RE
E_o 2.73 1.29 0.51 0.56
E_m 2.31 1.23 0.39 0.68
E_p 2.70 1.37 0.36 0.86

Surprisingly, the identity of the best performing estimator (i.e., optimist, mean, or pessimist) depends on the scoring function used. What is going on?

The analysis of scoring functions is very new. A 2010 paper by Gneiting showed that it does not make sense to select the scoring function after the estimates have been made (he uses the term forecasts). The scoring function needs to be known in advance, to allow an estimator to tune their responses to minimise the value that will be calculated to evaluate performance.

The mathematics involves Bregman functions (new to me), which provide a measure of distance between two points, where the points are interpreted as probability distributions.

Which, if any, of these scoring functions should be used to evaluate the accuracy of software estimates?

In software estimation, perhaps the two most commonly used scoring functions are APE and RE. If management selects one or the other as the scoring function to rate developer estimation performance, what estimation technique should employees use to deliver the best performance?

Assuming that information is available on the actual time taken to implement previous project tasks, then we can work out the distribution of actual times. Assuming this distribution does not change, we can calculate APE and RE for various estimation techniques; picking the technique that produces the lowest score.

Let’s assume that the distribution of actual times is zero-truncated Negative binomial in one project and zero-truncated Weibull in another (purely for convenience of analysis, reality is likely to be more complicated). Management has chosen either APE or RE as the scoring function, and it is now up to team members to decide the estimation technique they are going to use, with the aim of optimising their estimation performance evaluation.

A developer seeking to minimise the effort invested in estimating could specify the same value for every estimate. Knowing the scoring function (top row) and the distribution of actual implementation times (first column), the minimum effort developer would always give the estimate that is a multiple of the known mean actual times using the multiplier value listed:

                   APE   RE
Negative binomial  1.4   0.5
Weibull            1.2   0.6

For instance, management specifies APE, and previous task/actuals has a Weibull distribution, then always estimate the value 1.2*E_m.

What mean multiplier should Esta Pert, an expert estimator aim for? Esta’s estimates can be modelled by the equation Act*U(0.5, 2.0), i.e., the actual implementation time multiplied by a random value uniformly distributed between 0.5 and 2.0, i.e., Esta is an unbiased estimator. Esta’s table of multipliers is:

                   APE   RE
Negative binomial  1.0   0.7
Weibull            1.0   0.7

A company wanting to win contracts by underbidding the competition could evaluate Esta’s performance using the RE scoring function (to motivate her to estimate low), or they could use APE and multiply her answers by some fraction.

In many cases, developers are biased estimators, i.e., individuals consistently either under or over estimate. How does an implicit bias (i.e., something a person does unconsciously) change the multiplier they should consciously aim for (having analysed their own performance to learn their personal percentage bias)?

The following table shows the impact of particular under and over estimate factors on multipliers:

                 0.8 underestimate bias   1.2 overestimate bias
Score function          APE   RE            APE   RE
Negative binomial       1.3   0.9           0.8   0.6
Weibull                 1.3   0.9           0.8   0.6

Let’s say that one-third of those on a team underestimate, one-third overestimate, and the rest show no bias. What scoring function should a company use to motivate the best overall team performance?

The following table shows that neither of the scoring functions motivate team members to aim for the actual value when the distribution is Negative binomial:

                    APE   RE
Negative binomial   1.1   0.7
Weibull             1.0   0.7

One solution is to create a bespoke scoring function for this case. Both APE and RE are special cases of a more general scoring function (see top). Setting beta=-0.7 in this general form creates a scoring function that produces a multiplication factor of 1 for the Negative binomial case.

How large an impact does social conformity have on estimates?

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

People experience social pressure to conform to group norms. How big an impact might social pressure have on a developer’s estimate of the effort needed to implement some functionality?

If a manager suggests that the effort likely to be required is large/small, I would expect a developer to respond accordingly (even if the manager is thought to be incompetent; people like to keep their boss happy). Of course, customer opinions are also likely to have an impact, but what about fellow team members, or even the receptionist. Until somebody runs the experiments, we are going to have to do with non-software related tasks.

A study by Molleman, Kurversa, and van den Bos asked subjects (102 workers on Mechanical Turk) to estimate the number of animals in an image (which contained between 50 and 100 ants, flamingos, bees, cranes or crickets). Subjects were given 30 seconds to respond, and after typing their answer they were told that “another participant had estimated X“, and given 45 seconds to give a second estimate. The ‘social pressure’ estimate, X, was chosen to be around 15-25% larger/smaller than the estimate given (values from a previous experiment were randomly selected).

The plot below shows the number of second estimates where there was a given percentage change between the first and second estimates, red line is a loess fit; the formula used is {secondEstimate-firstEstimate}/{SocialEstimate-firstEstimate} (code+data):

Number of second estimates having a given change in the first estimate towards social estimate.

Around 25% of second estimates were unchanged, and 2% were changed to equal the social estimate. In two cases the second estimate was less than the first, and in eleven cases it was larger than the social estimate. Both the mean and median for shift towards the social estimate were just over 30% of the difference between the first estimate and the social estimate.

As with previous estimating studies, a few round numbers were often chosen. I was interested in finding out what impact the use of a round number value for the first estimate, or the social estimate, might have on the change in estimated value. The best regression model I could find showed that if the first estimate was exactly divisible by 5 (or 10), then the second estimate was likely to be around 5% larger. In fact divisible-by-5 was the only variable that had any predictive power.

My initial hypothesis was that the act of choosing a round numbers is an expression of uncertainty, and that this uncertainty increases the impact of the social estimate (when making the second estimate). An analysis of later experiments suggested that this pattern was illusionary (see below).

Modelling estimate values, rather than their differences, the equation: secondEstimate approx firstEstimate^{0.6}*SocialEstimate^{0.3} explains nearly all the variance present in the data.

Two weeks after the first experiment, all 102 subjects were asked to repeat the experiment (they each saw the same images, in the same order, and social estimates as in the first study); 69 subjects participated. Nine months after the first experiment, subjects were asked to repeat the experiment again; 47 subjects participated, again with each subject seeing the same images in the same order, and social estimates. Thirty-five subjects participated in all three experiments.

To what extent were subjects consistently influenced by the social estimate, across three identical sessions? The Pearson correlation coefficient between both the first/second experiment, and the first/third experiment, was around 0.6.

The impact of round numbers was completely different, i.e., no impact on the second, and a -7% impact on the third (i.e., a reduced change). So much for my initial hypothesis.

The exponents in the above equation did not change much for the data from the second and third reruns of the experiment.

The variability in the social estimates used in these experiments, involving image contents, differs from software estimates in that they were only 12-25% different from the first estimate. Software estimates often differ by significantly larger amounts (in fact, a 12% difference would probably be taken as agreement).

With some teams, people meet to thrash out a team estimate. Data is sometimes available on the final estimate, but data on the starting values is very hard to come by. Pointers to experiments where social estimates are significantly different (i.e., greater than 50%) from the ones given by subjects welcome.

Multiple estimates for the same project

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

The first question I ask, whenever somebody tells me that a project was delivered on schedule (or within budget), is which schedule (or budget)?

New schedules are produced for projects that are behind schedule, and costs get re-estimated.

What patterns of behavior might be expected to appear in a project’s reschedulings?

It is to be expected that as a project progresses, subsequent schedules become successively more accurate (in the sense of having a completion date and cost that is closer to the final values). The term cone of uncertainty is sometimes applied as a visual metaphor in project management, with the schedule becoming less uncertain as the project progresses.

The only publicly available software project rescheduling data, from Landmark Graphics, is for completed projects, i.e., cancelled projects are not included (121 completed projects and 882 estimates).

The traditional project management slide has some accuracy metric improving as work on a project approaches completion. The plot below shows the percentage of a project completed when each estimate is made, against the ratio Actual/Estimate; the y-axis uses a log scale so that under/over estimates appear symmetrical (code+data):

Project actual/estimate ratio against percent complete.

The closer a point to the blue line, the more accurate the estimate. The red line shows maximum underestimation, i.e., estimating that the project is complete when there is still more work to be done. A new estimate must be greater than (or equal) to the work already done, i.e., Work_{done} <= Estimate, and Work_{done} = Actual*Percentage_{complete}.

Rearranging, we get: Actual/Estimate <= 1/Percentage_{complete} (plotted in red). The top of the ‘cone’ does not represent managements’ increasing certainty, with project progress, it represents the mathematical upper bound on the possible inaccuracy of an estimate.

In theory there is no limit on overestimating (i.e., points appearing below the blue line), but in practice management are under pressure to deliver as early as possible and to minimise costs. If management believe they have overestimated, they have an incentive to hang onto the time/money allocated (the future is uncertain).

Why does management invest time creating a new schedule?

If information about schedule slippage leaks out, project management looks bad, which creates an incentive to delay rescheduling for as long as possible (i.e., let’s pretend everything will turn out as planned). The Landmark Graphics data comes from an environment where management made weekly reports and estimates were updated whenever the core teams reached consensus (project average was eight times).

The longer a project is being worked on, the greater the opportunity for more unknowns to be discovered and the schedule to slip, i.e., longer projects are expected to acquire more re-estimates. The plot below shows the number of estimates made, for each project, against the initial estimated duration (red/green) and the actual duration (blue/purple); lines are loess fits (code+data):

Number of estimates against project initial estimated and actual duration.

What might be learned from any patterns appearing in this data?

When presented with data on the sequence of project estimates, my questions revolve around the reasons for spending time creating a new estimate, and the amount of time spent on the estimate.

A lot of time may have been invested in the original estimate, but how much time is invested in subsequent estimates? Are later estimates simply calculated as a percentage increase, a politically acceptable value (to the stakeholder funding for the project), or do they take into account what has been learned so far?

The information needed to answer these answers is not present in the data provided.

However, this evidence of the consistent provision of multiple project estimates drives another nail in to the coffin of estimation research based on project totals (e.g., if data on project estimates is provided, one estimate per project, were all estimates made during the same phase of the project?)

Multiple estimates for the same project

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

The first question I ask, whenever somebody tells me that a project was delivered on schedule (or within budget), is which schedule (or budget)?

New schedules are produced for projects that are behind schedule, and costs get re-estimated.

What patterns of behavior might be expected to appear in a project’s reschedulings?

It is to be expected that as a project progresses, subsequent schedules become successively more accurate (in the sense of having a completion date and cost that is closer to the final values). The term cone of uncertainty is sometimes applied as a visual metaphor in project management, with the schedule becoming less uncertain as the project progresses.

The only publicly available software project rescheduling data, from Landmark Graphics, is for completed projects, i.e., cancelled projects are not included (121 completed projects and 882 estimates).

The traditional project management slide has some accuracy metric improving as work on a project approaches completion. The plot below shows the percentage of a project completed when each estimate is made, against the ratio Actual/Estimate; the y-axis uses a log scale so that under/over estimates appear symmetrical (code+data):

Project actual/estimate ratio against percent complete.

The closer a point to the blue line, the more accurate the estimate. The red line shows maximum underestimation, i.e., estimating that the project is complete when there is still more work to be done. A new estimate must be greater than (or equal) to the work already done, i.e., Work_{done} <= Estimate, and Work_{done} = Actual*Percentage_{complete}.

Rearranging, we get: Actual/Estimate <= 1/Percentage_{complete} (plotted in red). The top of the ‘cone’ does not represent managements’ increasing certainty, with project progress, it represents the mathematical upper bound on the possible inaccuracy of an estimate.

In theory there is no limit on overestimating (i.e., points appearing below the blue line), but in practice management are under pressure to deliver as early as possible and to minimise costs. If management believe they have overestimated, they have an incentive to hang onto the time/money allocated (the future is uncertain).

Why does management invest time creating a new schedule?

If information about schedule slippage leaks out, project management looks bad, which creates an incentive to delay rescheduling for as long as possible (i.e., let’s pretend everything will turn out as planned). The Landmark Graphics data comes from an environment where management made weekly reports and estimates were updated whenever the core teams reached consensus (project average was eight times).

The longer a project is being worked on, the greater the opportunity for more unknowns to be discovered and the schedule to slip, i.e., longer projects are expected to acquire more re-estimates. The plot below shows the number of estimates made, for each project, against the initial estimated duration (red/green) and the actual duration (blue/purple); lines are loess fits (code+data):

Number of estimates against project initial estimated and actual duration.

What might be learned from any patterns appearing in this data?

When presented with data on the sequence of project estimates, my questions revolve around the reasons for spending time creating a new estimate, and the amount of time spent on the estimate.

A lot of time may have been invested in the original estimate, but how much time is invested in subsequent estimates? Are later estimates simply calculated as a percentage increase, a politically acceptable value (to the stakeholder funding for the project), or do they take into account what has been learned so far?

The information needed to answer these answers is not present in the data provided.

However, this evidence of the consistent provision of multiple project estimates drives another nail in to the coffin of estimation research based on project totals (e.g., if data on project estimates is provided, one estimate per project, were all estimates made during the same phase of the project?)

Estimating in round numbers

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

People tend to use round numbers. When asked the time, the response is often rounded to the nearest 5-minute or 15-minute value, even when using a digital watch; the speaker is using what they consider to be a relevant level of accuracy.

When estimating how long it will take to perform a task, developers tend to use round numbers (based on three datasets). Giving what appears to be an overly precise value could be taken as communicating extra information, e.g., an estimate of 1-hr 3-minutes communicates a high degree of certainty (or incompetence, or making a joke). If the consumer of the estimate is working in round numbers, it makes sense to give a round number estimate.

Three large software related effort estimation datasets are now available: the SiP data contains estimates made by many people, the Renzo Pomodoro data is one person’s estimates, and now we have the Brightsquid data (via the paper “Utilizing product usage data for requirements evaluation” by Hemmati, Didar Al Alam and Carlson; I cannot find an online pdf at the moment).

The plot below shows the total number of tasks (out of the 1,945 tasks in the Brightsquid data) for which a given estimate value was recorded; peak values shown in red (code+data):

Number of tasks having a given estimate.

Why are there estimates for tasks taking less than 30 minutes? What are those 1 minute tasks (are they typos, where the second digit was omitted and the person involved simply create a new estimate without deleting the original)? How many of those estimate values appearing once are really typos, e.g., 39 instead of 30? Does the task logging system used require an estimate before anything can be done? Unfortunately I don’t have access to the people involved. It does look like this data needs some cleaning.

There are relatively few 7-hour estimates, but lots for 8-hours. I’m assuming the company works an 8-hour day (the peak at 4-hours, rather than three, adds weight to this assumption).

The Renzo Pomodoro dataset

Derek Jones from The Shape of Code

Estimating how long it will take to complete a task is hard work, and the most common motivation for this work comes from external factors, e.g., the boss, or a potential client asks for an estimate to do a job.

People also make estimates for their own use, e.g., when planning work for the day. Various processes and techniques have been created to help structure the estimation process; for developers there is the Personal Software Process, and specifically for time estimation (but not developer specific), there is the Pomodoro Technique.

I met Renzo Borgatti at the first talk I gave on the SiP dataset (Renzo is the organizer of the Papers We Love meetup). After the talk, Renzo told me about his use of the Pomodoro Technique, and how he had 10-years worth of task estimates; wow, I was very interested. What happened next, and a work-in-progress analysis (plus data and R scripts) of the data can be found in the Renzo Pomodoro dataset repo.

The analysis progressed in fits and starts; like me Renzo is working on a book, and is very busy. The work-in-progress pdf is reasonably consistent.

I had never seen a dataset of estimates made for personal use, and had not read about the analysis of such data. When estimates are made for consumption by others, the motives involved in making the estimate can have a big impact on the values chosen, e.g., underestimating to win a bid, or overestimating to impress the boss by completing a task under budget. Is a personal estimate motive free? The following plot led me to ask Renzo if he was superstitious (in not liking odd numbers).

Number of tasks having a given number of estimate and actual Pomodoro values.

The plot shows the number of tasks for which there are a given number of estimates and actuals (measured in Pomodoros, i.e., units of 25 minutes). Most tasks are estimated to require one Pomodoro, and actually require this amount of effort.

Renzo educated me about the details of the Pomodoro technique, e.g., there is a 15-30 minute break after every four Pomodoros. Did this mean that estimates of three Pomodoros were less common because the need for a break was causing Renzo to subconsciously select an estimate of two or four Pomodoro? I am not brave enough to venture an opinion about what is going on in Renzo’s head.

Each estimated task has an associated tag name (sometimes two), which classifies the work involved, e.g., @planning. In the task information these tags have the form @word; I refer to them as at-words. The following plot is very interesting; it shows the date of use of each at-word, over time (ordered by first use of the at-word).

at-words usage, by date.

The first and third black lines are fitted regression models of the form 1-e^{-K*days}, where: K is a constant and days is the number of days since the start of the interval fitted. The second (middle) black line is a fitted straight line.

The slow down in the growth of new at-words suggests (at least to me) a period of time working in the same application domain (which involves a fixed number of distinct activities, that are ‘discovered’ by Renzo over time). More discussion with Renzo is needed to see if we can tie this down to what he was working on at the time.

I have looked for various other patterns and associations, involving at-words, but have not found any (but I did learn some new sequence analysis techniques, and associated R packages).

The data is now out there. What patterns and associations can you find?

Renzo tells me that there is a community of people using the Pomodoro technique. I’m hoping that others users of this technique, involved in software development, have recorded their tasks over a long period (I don’t think I could keep it up for longer than a week).

Perhaps there are PSP followers out there with data…

I offer to do a free analysis of software engineering data, provided I can make data public (in anonymized form). Do get in touch.