'My Washing Machine Refreshed My Thinking on Software Effort Estimation'

What Chris Horsley expected to be a 10-minute washing machine installation stretched to four hours and required five trips to the hardware store. The CTO of security consultancy firm documented how unexpected obstacles -- drilling through shelves, replacing incompatible hoses, and removing hidden caps -- derailed his timeline.

Horsley draws a direct parallel to software development, where estimation regularly fails despite experience. 'While 90% of the project will be the same, there's going to be one critical difference between the last 5 projects and this project that seemed trivial at the time of estimation but will throw off our whole schedule,' he writes in a blog.

These disruptions often appear as unmaintained frameworks, obsolete development tools, or incompatible infrastructure components that weren't visible during planning. The software development environment changes rapidly, creating what Horsley describes as 'unknown unknowns.' Despite thorough requirements gathering, developers inevitably encounter unanticipated blockers, transforming familiar-looking tasks into complex challenges.

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