Re: How to identify a website's scale?

Arved Sandstrom wrote:
I find it better to use a (#D) X (#M) estimate for effort than total
man-months. You lose information with the latter. IOW, the same project can
use different total man-months depending on how many coders are assigned to
it.

In Steve McConnell's /Rapid Development/ and other sources, one learns that development cost for a project is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the time allotted for development. The book also discusses the effect of team size.

There is a sweet spot, given a set of requirements, for team size and schedule. The DxM formula is not commutative or linear. A twelve-person team cannot accomplish in five months a project that requires five people twelve months.

A larger-than-needed team likely would require more time to complete a project satisfactorily than the right-sized team.

--
Lew
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