Devauld.ca

Hello June!

The year is nearly half over, summer is waking from its slumber, the yard looks like a jungle and I still haven't finished the trim in the basement. The problem, I have discovered, is that I am terrible at estimating how long something will take.

This is not something that is limited to basement renovations; it can also be found in my estimating the time it takes to create software, complete yard work, travel between two locations and even read a book. An example is the gate that leads to the back yard. Over the winter, one of the structural boards let go of some of the nails, and as a result the bottom board would drag across the ground every time the gate was opened or closed. The plan was to string out an extension cord and use a drill to pull out some screws and get the gate off the fence. Next take the gate into the shop, change out the semi-rotten board with a new board, screw it into place and then hang the gate back up. How long should something like that take? I initially thought it was going to be a couple of hours. It ended up taking over 10, putting my work into the fading hours of the day and resulting in nothing else getting done on my precious weekend time.

In all of my estimating, the reason behind my terrible estimates isn't in me predicting the work that needs to be done, it is in not foreseeing the problems that inevitably arrive. The problem with the gate: it wasn't actually square. When I got it under a measuring tape, I found that the top of the gate was an inch and three quarters longer than the bottom. I wasn't about to let that fly, so I set out with some power tools and more wood and squared it up. Then when I hung it back up, I discovered that whomever built the original fence made the gate to offset non-level fence. Out with the jack and chain, pull up the post.

Oh look! It's rotten!

Obtain a post, get it level and pack it in. Oh look, the pounding turned it and it isn't square! Rinse, repete. Then the gate went up, and could swing without scraping along the ground. The simple task of replacing an old rotting board, turned into a whole day adventure in home maintenance.

This is not an isolated incident. One of my first large scale projects was scheduled to take approximately one thousand man hours. By the time the project shipped, there was over ten times that amount of hours billed. Blowing the budget? Anyone who works in software knows what I'm talking about. You'll find a library function won't execute your call-back, the library you installed won't work on your 64-bit architecture, and when everything appears to be working, there is that one case discovered in quality assurance that is a security risk and results in a total rework.

I've been starting to refer to this phenomenon as the 'Time Ratchet'. Like the turns on a ratchet, each item doesn't itself appear to be a big deal. Although after enough turns or problems you end up with something much larger. Each of the turns of the ratchet work towards the same goal: a tighter nut. The same can be said for the small individual setback in your projects, each works towards a longer timeframe.

The Time Ratchet effect appears everywhere. I had to meet a client to talk about a photo shoot. I time boxed the entire thing into about 2 hours. Driving through downtown, I run into some traffic adding about five to ten minutes *chuck-chick*. Client takes a phone call that lasts about 3 minutes *chuck-chick*. I can't seem to find a gallery that contains the example I'm talking about. I stumble around the website for two or three minutes until I have it *chuck-chick*. Answering all the questions takes twice as long, due to divergent chat about travelling across the US border *chuck-chick*. Now the ratchet effect has me still in a cafe when I planned to be at home starting on something else.

The Time Ratchet is turned by whatever you are currently doing, and tightens up the time you have to do other things. When you are turning the ratchet, you are simply working the tool. It isn't until you get into the compressed time on the other end and wonder why it is so tight.