Evidence Based Scheduling

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Evidence Based Scheduling (EBS) is a method of scheduling software projects coined by Joel Spolsky^[1]. EBS looks at the historical track records of every person who enters estimates in a software project, and assumes that the future will look a lot like the past. It uses a statistical method called bootstrapping to predict software schedules^[2]. Other evidence based methods include Evidence Based Medicine, which shares the use of historical and current evidence to make predictions about the future.

[edit] Disadvantages

As with any scheduling method, it is still open to manipulation^[3]. For instance, a manager can reverse the method and take their preferred estimate, work out the date the developer would have to give as an estimate to make the manager's preferred estimate match with what EBS would give as a more accurate estimate based on the developer's history, and badger the developer into giving that as the estimate.