Scientific Wet Finger In The Air

As the study of estimating continued many new methods of estimating were born, these I would call the SWFITA estimating techniques. An alternative approach to this would be to wet your finger using a pipette and then holding it up in front of an electronic fan.

Wet Finger in The Air

Where were we, ah I remember, the dawn of estimating. Of course sticking your finger in the air could not continue as the defacto standard.

• 
  Have you noticed how Latin is used to say very unpleasant things or downright lies.. how many of you know Latin... oh, as many as that.

Anyway a "defacto" standard is no standard at all.

The next logical step was to wet the finger, not with water, but with experience! So, now we have WFITA!

Favorite Acronym of All Time

But before this interrupt has to come to an end I have to give you my all time favourite acronym. To fully understand its significance you have to have worked along side sales staff who sold software development. The story goes like this, the salesman has explained what the client wants, and you've explained the potential problems and how much more work would have to be done before any agreement could be reached. The salesman has then gone back to the client and uttered those immortal words;

NO PROBLEM!

and then when he gives you the specification you stamp on it;

YCKYAGYOYON!

"You Can Kiss Your Ass Good-bye, You're On Your Own Now!

Apocolypse

Most acronyms are three letters long, or TLA's, and even the Four Letter Acronym's are described by a TLA (FLA!). In fact one of my old favourite FLA's is OOPS, which I've always associated as the thing you say when you've just made a mistake (!) and as the phonetic version of the TV comedy programme Whoops Apocalypse .... OOPS Apocalypse? And the Object Management Group, OMG, sounds like an Electrosynth pop group from the 80's.

Acronyms

And yea, the first acronym was born, and it was good, and it was the

'FITA estimate'

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Acronym's

Someone once showed me how to get a 150 slide, two hour presentation down to one slide given in less than three minutes. Why would you want to do that you may well be well be asking. Well if you've ever sat through the average 150 slide, two hour, presentation you would understand why. But on top of the boredom factor lies a much more scientific reason, tests by the US Navy have shown that the average period for concentration is 5 minutes. Imagine what the time scale would be for a busy executive, or the Typical Executive Attention Time (TEAT), that's right .... 3 minutes ... the time it takes to boil an egg!

So how do get such a dramatic reduction? You do it by using acronym's of course!

The History of Software Estimating

The history of estimating is littered with ruined careers, blood on the walls, and acronyms. It all revolves around that pointing finger shown earlier, because in the beginning was the word, and the word was;

'you may as well stick your Finger In The Air!'