Look for measure of time estimation in issue tracking software

Question

We have standard issue tracking system (home grown for internal use only) and plan to add planing capabilities as all task have all necessary data to make estimation.

So each task have:

• more or less accurate estimated time
• accurate spent time
• more or less accurate percentage completeness
• accurate beginning/schedule date
• task owner

Also we have scheduled version which is a group of tasks.

We don't know how to ask to question:

how many hours we must spend to release end
according to tasks time data and version schedule date?

or:

do we finish version to specified schedule?

PS Seems that percentage completeness is less accurate and we decide to drop it...

Answer 1

Estimation is trickier than it looks. For example, when people are asked to give time estimates, they generally systematically underestimate (it's called "optimism bias").

My best suggestion is that you should get a book on the topic and read it. McConnell's Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art is a good place to start.