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In this case why not just divide the estimate by the confidence to get the "true estimate" e.g in your example it's actually a 4 week. If you provide a tuple the confidence will eventually be conveniently dropped in some slide deck then the "2 weeks" will be socialised as the commitment.


The estimate-confidence relation is not linear. In my experience it follows some kind of S-curve, with 0% confidence approaching impossibly short times and 100% approaching infinity (like a logistic function).


I think software projects are best estimated as gamma distributions. To express that as confidence levels, you use the cumulative distribution function of the gamma, which are kind of S shaped, but stretched to the right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution


For instance, if you have a task that you cannot imagine taking less than 50 days, the actual time can follow the following distribution:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gamma+distribution+with...

And the confidence distribution would be:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=cumulative+gamma+distri...


The logistic function is bounded, so I'm not sure what you mean...


Time spent is on the x-axis and confidence on the y axis. To reach 100% confidence, you have to supply an infinite estiamate.




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