[knowsnothing613]

I remember a lecture where my prof said the multiply by 2 never works out for project management, because studies have shown that workers find ways to prolong the project twice as long.

For instance if you knew your homework was due 2 weeks from now, instead of a week, you find a way to procrastinate for the extra week.

Instead try PERT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Evaluation_and_Review_T...

And try this formula:

    * Optimistic time (O): the minimum possible time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything proceeds better than is normally expected
    * Pessimistic time (P): the maximum possible time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything goes wrong (but excluding major catastrophes).
    * Most likely time (M): the best estimate of the time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything proceeds as normal.
    * Expected time (TE): the best estimate of the time required to accomplish a task, assuming everything proceeds as normal (the implication being that the expected time is the average time the task would require if the task were repeated on a number of occasions over an extended period of time).

            TE = (O + 4M + P) ÷ 6