[trashtester]

When estimating a software project of any size, try to imagine the most optimistic number of hours needed for each activity you can think of.

Then multiply by 4.14.

This provides room for

Phase 1: First verions of the deliverable: xpi/2

Phase 2: Trying to work around all the cases where the initial design was bad: xpi/2

Phase 3: Re-factor from scratch (with the same team) : x1

Sum phase 1-3 : x(pi+1)

This is for facing the customers/stakeholders. When facing the team, only present them with Phase1, with the estimate of xpi/2.

Otherwise, phase 1 alone will take x(pi+1).