20.7. Schedule Estimation and Staffing Constraints

Nominally, you can compute the average team size by taking the effort estimate and dividing it by the schedule. If you’ve estimated a 12-month schedule for a project of 80 staff months, your average team size is just the staff months divided by the schedule, 80 divided by 12, which is 6 to 7 team members.

The schedule estimates produced in this chapter produce the nominal schedule for a project at a particular level of effort. These techniques assume that, whatever the nominal schedule is, you’ll be able to adjust your team size to fit the level indicated. If you’re in a position to apply an average of 6 to 7 people to the project estimated in this chapter, you should be able to achieve the combination of 80-staff-month effort and 12-calendar-month schedule that’s been estimated.