I am amazed that some developers think that they are fooling anyone with this. I am working with a development team and they never send me an estimate of how much effort they are planning until after the fact. The amazing thing about this is that they are nearly 100% accurate with the estimates they eventually send. Their level of effort estimates are correct down to the half hour. (I hope my sarcasm comes through here)
Who are they fooling? I know that they are performing the work and then plugging their actuals into the planned effort. Their reputation is sinking faster than the Titanic. This practice is not rare. I have seen it on two other occasions from different vendors. I call it 'Planning in the Rear View Mirror' because they will tell you what their plan is...
after the work is already done.
That does me no good. The reason I need to see your LOE is so I can ensure that adequate funds are in place to support the work. If you give me no time to ensure that funds are in place to cover the work then you should expect a stop work order to be issued because we don't have the funds necessary to cover the balance. This only leads to more difficult situations both on the government side and on the vendor side.
So my strongest recommendation is that you generate the estimate, send it in. Sometimes it will be off. That is why we have a risk management process, to identify things that will invalidate the estimate and work to avoid them. But it is better to be a little off and use the process than it is to completely stop work on a release.
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