Late projects mean over budget projects due to the cost of developers wages. As such it is critically that the project can be delivered on time. It also looks very bad on the developing company if they cannot deliver when they said they could. Sometimes it is even more critical as the customer could well have very pressing business reasons for a project to be delivered by a certain date.

In order to decide on how long a project will take the project manager will hhave to estimate how long their developers will take to do the project. A balancing act will have to be done based on the cost, skill level and number of staff to bring onto the project. Once a set of developers is potentially chosen the project length is estimated. The exact process of estimation is a bit of a black art. It takes a lot of factors into consideration such as skill level, previous projects and project managers gut feelings. It is important also to factor in risks.

Once the estimated length is worked out it will be compared with the required deadline from the customer. If it can be done it time then the project could go ahead. It is important to note that many developers will give quite aggressive estimates in order to undercut the competition.