Pratyush Nutalapati

There are many ways to estimate and goal should be to stay in the 10-20% range of the actual effort needed to validate the accuracy of the system being built. Software estimation is inherently non-trivial. The resulting product is virtually invisible until it is finished and we rarely end up with the same product that we initially estimated. Most of the estimates are based on the early requirements that are planned for the release or product roadmap and this can impact our estimation since effort estimated is different from actual effort when the test cycle starts. Estimation process can be challenging where we have limited knowledge about the application/product organization ecosystem which we plan to test mostly for a new client, domain or product.  With many years of experience these are some set of guidelines which have been very helpful in the estimation process and want to share in my blog. The goal that I have always set was to come in about 15-20% ball park of the actual effor