ABSTRACT
Introduction In 1976, early in my career, I became interested in effort and schedule estimation as a result of a confrontation with a vice president at a company for which I worked. Unknown to me, the organization had an unstated effort and schedule in mind. I was a software project manager while working on my MBA. There were no software estimation models available to me at the time. I was told to prepare an estimate for a four-terminal cluster system. Using the techniques learned through my MBA and my knowledge and experience as a software developer and project manager, I developed the estimate manually. It included a range of effort accompanied with estimates for risk and uncertainty.
