Adam Kalsey

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Estimating ship dates

27 Oct 2007

Joel Spolsky describes a new feature in the FogBugz bug tracking application. Evidence Based Scheduling is an automated way of comparing developer estimates to their past work.

What you get is not just one ship date: you get a confidence distribution curve, showing the probability that you will ship on any given date.

In a nutshell, you figure out how much a developer generally misses their estimates by and then FogBugz uses a random distribution of those numbers to give you a series of possible ship dates along with the probability that the code will ship on those dates.

This is similar to how many software shops already do their estimating, but FogBugz has created a great way of automating it and making it a tool.

Joel includes the detailed mechanics of how FogBugz calculates this, and I’d expect to see other project management tools replicating this in the near future.

Recently Written

Your OKR Cascade is Breaking Your Strategy
Aug 1: Most companies cascade OKRs down their org chart thinking it creates alignment. Instead, it fragments strategy and marginalizes supporting teams. Here's what works better than the waterfall approach.
Your Prioritization Problem Is a Strategy Problem
Jul 23: Most teams struggle with prioritization because they're trying to optimize for everything at once. The real problem isn't having too many options—it's not having a clear strategy to choose between them. Without strategy, every decision feels equally important. With strategy, most decisions become obvious.
Behind schedule
Jul 21: Your team is 6 weeks late and still missing features. The solution isn't working harder—it's accepting that your deadlines were fake all along. Ship what you have. Cut ruthlessly. Stop letting "one more day" turn into one more month.
VC’s Future Lies In Building Winners
Jun 21: AI and megafunds are about to kill the traditional venture model, forcing smaller VCs to stop hunting for hidden gems and start rolling up their sleeves to fix broken companies instead.
Should individual people have OKRs?
May 14: A good OKR describes and measures an outcome, but it can be challenging to create an outcome-focused OKR for an individual.
10 OKR traps and how to avoid them
May 8: I’ve helped lots of teams implement OKRs or fix a broken OKR process. Here are the 10 most common problems I see, and what to do instead.
AI is Smart, But Wisdom Requires Judgement
May 3: AI can process data at lightning speed, but wisdom comes from human judgment—picking the best imperfect option when facts alone don’t point the way.
Decoding Product Leadership Titles
Mar 18: Not all product leadership titles mean what they sound like. ‘Head of Product’ can mean anything from a senior PM to a true VP. Here’s how to tell the difference.

Older...

What I'm Reading