Category: round number
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Distribution of small project completion times
Records of project estimates and actual task times show that round numbers are very common. Various possible reasons have been suggested for why actual times are often reported as a round number. This post analyses the impact of round number reports of actual times on the accuracy of estimates. The plot below shows the number…
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When task time measurements are not reported by developers
Measurements of the time taken to complete a software development task usually rely on the values reported by the person doing the work. People often give round number answers to numeric questions. This rounding has the effect of shifting start/stop/duration times to 5/10/15/20/30/45/60 minute boundaries. To what extent do developers actually start/stop tasks on round…