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Show HN: Monte Carlo simulation for predicting project timelines

136 点作者 diiq将近 4 年前

31 条评论

colincooke将近 4 年前
A simpler, if perhaps less effective, idea would be to just take advantage of ensembling. Get many estimates from everyone qualified to give them, then just fit a normal distribution to your final results. The average of many estimates tends to actually be quite accurate sometimes, with the famous example of visitors to a county fair guessing the weight of an ox[0]:<p>&quot;At a county fair held in Plymouth, 800 visitors had participated in a competition to guess the weight of an ox. While most people&#x27;s estimates were too high or too low — falling an average of 37 lbs. away from the true weight of 1,198 lbs. — the median of everyone&#x27;s guess was off by only 9 lbs., or less than 1 percent of the true weight of the ox.&quot;<p>Curiously there is also some &quot;within individual&quot; averaging that helps too. If you would ask the same person to estimate the project timeline a few times, spaced temporally, then take the average, it&#x27;ll probably be more accurate than a single estimate.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;13.7&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;12&#x2F;592868569&#x2F;no-man-is-an-island-the-wisdom-of-deliberating-crowds" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;13.7&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;12&#x2F;592868569&#x2F;no-ma...</a>
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orlandohill将近 4 年前
Joel Spolsky described this technique, calling it <i>Evidence Based Scheduling</i>. I&#x27;m surprised that it didn&#x27;t become more popular.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;evidence-based-scheduling&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;evidence-based-sch...</a>
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poodler将近 4 年前
Nice service, lots of ways to grow. I think the ability to make pretty pdfs for clients is actually a strong pull.<p>In my experience, statistical modeling of potential timelines is not the bottleneck to accurate quotes: it’s the ability to actually give good guesses for “min time” and “max time” on critical tasks. I.e. the majority of timeline variability is due to just a few “tasks” that totally blow out of proportion because I underestimated how much work was actually involved. Idk, maybe that’s just me.<p>It would be nice to track my estimates vs actual time spent to improve the “human error” part.
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bberenberg将近 4 年前
Feels like a good idea, but the hard part here is the data input. Do you have any plans to import from Jira or something like it? Ideally bi-directional sync after a given simulation is run?
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jkaptur将近 4 年前
Oh wow, my first job in the industry was building something very much like this!<p>It was actually quite powerful: the UI and simulation were done by Microsoft Project (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;microsoft-365&#x2F;project&#x2F;project-management-software" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;microsoft-365&#x2F;project&#x2F;projec...</a>), which I would describe as &quot;the Excel of project management&quot; in that it was an ENORMOUS bag of features for building Gantt charts. The coolest part was that it integrated with Outlook&#x27;s calendar, so if a task started on June 1st, was assigned to Bob, took two weeks, and Bob was on vacation from June 8th-22nd, it calculated the end date for the task as the end of June.<p>The Monte Carlo part was run by Crystal Ball (which was a startup then, but has since been acquired by Oracle). It was a mature tool, so there was a big library of probability distributions (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.oracle.com&#x2F;cd&#x2F;E57185_01&#x2F;CYBUG&#x2F;define_assumption_dialog.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.oracle.com&#x2F;cd&#x2F;E57185_01&#x2F;CYBUG&#x2F;define_assumption...</a>), you could enter correlations (if X task takes a long time, Y is going to take a long time too), and you could analyze the output in all sorts of ways (how sensitive is the deadline to this task, how <i>frequently</i> is this task on the critical path, etc.).<p>The implementation was quite a hack - a hidden instance of Excel running Crystal Ball and lots and lots of VBA to manage everything. I&#x27;m not sure that it was ever used for real :(
SkyMarshal将近 4 年前
I really like this idea and wish all project management tools included it by default. Fwiw Fogbugz has been using it for over a decade, called Evidence Based Scheduling:<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;evidence-based-scheduling&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joelonsoftware.com&#x2F;2007&#x2F;10&#x2F;26&#x2F;evidence-based-sch...</a><p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.fogbugz.com&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;360011258994-Evidence-Based-Scheduling-EBS-" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.fogbugz.com&#x2F;hc&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;articles&#x2F;360011258994-E...</a><p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.fogbugz.com&#x2F;evidence-based-scheduling" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.fogbugz.com&#x2F;evidence-based-scheduling</a><p>There’s at least one Jira app for it:<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;handshake&#x2F;pystradamus" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;handshake&#x2F;pystradamus</a><p>And Trac also used to have EBS but I’m not sure if it still does, can’t find it atm:<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trac.edgewall.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trac.edgewall.org&#x2F;</a>
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skellystudios将近 4 年前
You should 100% have a sample tool for people to play with on this homepage.
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asdf_snar将近 4 年前
As a package this seems perfectly reasonable, but I&#x27;m skeptical of the use of Monte Carlo being a technical buzzword rather than a choice made because it was the appropriate tool for the task. I wasn&#x27;t able to find any technical details in the &quot;How it works&quot; section, but if you assume the distribution of time to complete a task is uniform on the interval [worst case, best case], then at any time point the underlying distribution seems to be a composition of sums and minima of uniform distributions. These are available in closed form. I see in another comment the distributions are assumed to be log-normal -- that&#x27;s fine too, there are good approximation to these. On the website it says thousands of trajectories are generated. It seems likely that one can straightforwardly compute the result that the Monte Carlo approach would give in the limit of infinitely many generated trajectories.
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enlightens将近 4 年前
Very interesting! Is there a sample report &#x2F; projection available to view? I&#x27;d like to show this to a few coworkers without having to spend time loading in my own sample data
dglass将近 4 年前
I&#x27;ve used this technique before at an employer. I thought it was crazy at first but I came to really like it. No more story points and estimating the size of tickets. The monte carlo simulation handles the forecasting for us so the engineers can focus on completing tasks. The PMs focused on user stories and acceptance criteria. The stakeholders had a continuously updated forecast for when things would likely get done.
a_zaydak将近 4 年前
The idea seems simple enough and the math to do these kinds of predictions is fairly straight forward unless there is some secret sauce under the hood that isn&#x27;t obvious. I guess the value is slick UI &#x2F; tool that was created around it.<p>One question that I do have about these types of tools... how does one evaluate how well it worked? I guess in the end as long as the timeline wasn&#x27;t too far off then you call it a win.<p>I think a useful tool for project planning is not necessarily simulating possible time-lines (or a estimated window of time for the project to be completed) however to intelligently identify a set of critical tasks within the list which would have a high probability of totally blowing up your time line their deadlines are missed. In project management &#x2F; scheduling there are often critical path items listed. However often these critical items are semi-arbitrarily picked by the PM and not backed by and deep insights.
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weeblewobble将近 4 年前
There&#x27;s a product called LiquidPlanner built around this idea thats been around for years. A friend used to work there but I have no other affiliation. Looks like they&#x27;re still kickin&#x27; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.liquidplanner.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.liquidplanner.com&#x2F;</a>
darepublic将近 4 年前
Trying to get correct estimates feels like it violates some basic quantum principle of physics. Were venturing into Schrodinger territory here folks.<p>On a more serious note, good idea and nice site. I may give this a try. I have been thinking along these lines myself, using simulations to complete different dev related tasks
danielmarkbruce将近 4 年前
Out of interest, why not make this a jira app and sell it in the atlassian marketplace? You get low cost distribution, the tool would fit right into the existing product everyone is using, installation is easy etc, data sync is easy, you can still generate the nice pdfs.
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nwsm将近 4 年前
The idea is interesting, but it appears to involve using Vistimo&#x27;s UI to break down projects and tasks. It feels incredibly waterfally, and also will involve re-entering mass amounts of project management data. I hope it integrates with Jira&#x2F;Trello.
alex_c将近 4 年前
I like this! I would consider using it for some of our projects.<p>Biggest issue I have is with the task list, for any reasonably complicated project we would at least need ability to group tasks into features or milestones. Task lists can get pretty granular, but communication to stakeholders or clients does not usually need to be that detailed, higher level groupings are preferable (and also makes it easier to organize the tasks).<p>As others mentioned, integration with Jira and such would be nice, but not a deal breaker.<p>Also I think I broke my demo project, I changed one estimate and the projections just say &quot;New projections are being calculated&quot;. There are only 4 tasks :)
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quickthrower2将近 4 年前
Estimation. Great if you can fix (a) who is working on it (b) the visual and technical design and (c) the scope and (d) other interruptions.<p>You can fix those things, have fully signed off design docs, have a CCN process for every little change etc. and watch everything grind to a halt while you deliver the wrong thing on time.<p>I’m not saying don’t estimate. Do! Have a plan and realise it won’t survive contact with reality.
Grustaf将近 4 年前
Interesting idea, and very nice and simple web page! I have no idea if people are willing to pay for it, but good on you for making an attempt.<p>A question though, isn&#x27;t Monte Carlo a bit overkill? Would you lose much by modelling each deadline as a normal distribution? Then you could just calculate things analytically.
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impute将近 4 年前
Neat idea. This looks somewhat similar to Actionable Agile except it&#x27;s up front rather than relying on ticket cycle time.<p>Are you able to share the task list so that each project member is able to fill out their best and worst case estimates on their own in an async fashion, preferably anonymously?
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ballmerspeak将近 4 年前
If those buttons are appealing, I recognize them from this blog post by Josh Comeau <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joshwcomeau.com&#x2F;animation&#x2F;3d-button&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.joshwcomeau.com&#x2F;animation&#x2F;3d-button&#x2F;</a>
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vladsanchez将近 4 年前
Hi Sam, your work is admirable and I&#x27;m sure lots will pay attention.<p>As a side note, have you seen&#x2F;heard of (sic) &quot;Vistima&quot; parody? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4jVQhdlCmjc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4jVQhdlCmjc</a><p>Congrats, Stay Thirsty.
virgil_disgr4ce将近 4 年前
I&#x27;d like to see some kind of explanation of how exactly you &quot;express the various uncertainties&quot; of the project. I&#x27;m not going to click the CTA until I understand what I&#x27;d actually be doing to use the product.
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tschottdorf将近 4 年前
I tried to use this but once I start entering tasks I don&#x27;t see how to proceed. There&#x27;s no way forward from neither there nor the project list page. Am I missing something?
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mclouts91将近 4 年前
There’s a typo on the how it works page... Unkown unkows
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pton-throw将近 4 年前
The UI is slick, but why should I trust this black box?<p>The &quot;how does it work&quot; section doesn&#x27;t even mention<p>* modeling assumptions<p>* training data (if any)<p>* validation (if any)<p>Why is this better than, say, giving the 25-75% range around my &quot;best guess&quot; assuming log-normal duration and the variance of prior project completion times? Can you demonstrate that it&#x27;s better than that?
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breakfastduck将近 4 年前
I thought this would be brilliant, so I clicked &#x27;try it out&#x27; only to get through and be asked to <i>manually write in</i> the tasks. I have a huge backlog already in an external tool.<p>I can&#x27;t comprehend I&#x27;m expected to write them out one by one with no ability to import that I can see.
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db48x将近 4 年前
Nobody can design unilateral phase detractors in just 4 hours.
poxwole将近 4 年前
Can anyone link some research papers on this?
Aeolun将近 4 年前
Does this have an API to feed it tasks?
ThouYS将近 4 年前
Intriguing idea
awillen将近 4 年前
Until you have some reasonable way to quantify the likelihood that the CEO will see something shiny and insist on changing course, this just doesn&#x27;t seem like it would be useful in the real world.
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