m0smithslash's Journal: Software Development - Oct 2003 - Vol. 11 No. 10

Future Fixes

How much time to plan for bug fixes in a project plan?

• Reduce bugs by completing tasks, rather than half completing and "getting back to it later".
• Use data from previous projects: size of the completed project, number of people, number of bugs, etc.
• Track your estimates. Each week reestimate the project end to see how you are really doing. If tasks take longer in the beginning you can start preparing to go long.
• Measure how many "fixes" cause other problems with FFR ( fix failure ratio, the number of bad fixes to all fixes).
• Critical chain buffer management. Keep track of hours versus the real estimate, not the fudge factors.
• Be Agile: test first, automated unit testing. On large projects, add a defect search and destroy iteration

By keeping things in the open and using EQF to analyze schedule and FFR to determine developer accuracy you can better predict the outcome of your project.