Software estimation

Software estimation is like trying to figure out how long it will take to finish building a big Lego set with lots of pieces.

Imagine you are given a Lego set with a picture of what it will look like when it's finished. But before you start building it, you have to figure out how long it will take you to finish it.

To estimate how long it will take, you might look at how many pieces there are in total and how long it usually takes you to connect the pieces. You might also think about how much time you'll need to take breaks or ask for help.

Similarly, in software estimation, we try to figure out how long it will take to build a software program. We look at how many features we need to build and how complex they are. We try to think about how long it will take to design and test the program too.

Just like with a Lego set, it's not always easy to estimate how long it will take to build software. Sometimes unexpected things happen or pieces of code are harder to connect than we thought they would be. But by making estimates, we can plan our time and resources better and make sure we finish the software on time.