Estimate Development Time

  • Resolved jinx-nm

    (@jinx-nm)


    11 years, 11 months ago

    I am very new to WordPress, but I am impressed with the possibilities. That said, I am having a difficult time estimating how long projects will take to complete. My old assumptions were based upon custom design, custom programming (HTML and CSS), and placement and formatting of content. So much of this is done for you by starting with an existing theme and by allowing people to input their own content that I am clueless. Of course there is time involved to customize a theme, setup admin profiles, and configure widgets and plugins so I do not want to underestimate the time required. Everyone works at different speeds so it is probably naive for me to ask, but does anyone know of a worksheet/tool/formula that can help me to estimate WordPress site development time by number of pages, features, custom vs existing theme, etc.? Thanks

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  • This question is really unanswerable, because so much depends upon a developers personal workflow, and on each site’s level of customization. Time can also be eaten up with you start with a theme that needs lots and lots of work, vs finding a theme that already has what you need and is well-coded.

    I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating for myself how much time it will take me to deliver specific projects, but only after a lot of experience. And with WordPress, often an update to the core can change the way things have to be done, which changes the learning curve. I have also found that each site’s requirements teach me at least one new thing about WordPress that I can use later without as much research or tinkering time, so I get faster with each project.

    So, the only way to figure this out for yourself, I think, is to work on a bunch of projects and see how long they take you. Being new to WordPress means your learning curve is going to be a bit longer than others who have been doing it for years.

    Jess is right.. This question has no possible answer except 10 – 200 hours.
    It really depends on the project, your client ( some like to change their minds every day. :/ ) and how comfortable you get with WordPress.

    I would recommend that you look at a starter theme, learn it and get comfortable with it and by the time you’ve built 5 or 10, you should have a better idea.

    Thread Starter jinx-nm

    (@jinx-nm)

    I pretty much expected that there was no easy answer, but I thank you both for your responses. For the first projects I will just need to give myself generous timelines, record my times for each task, and then average them to create my personalized tool/worksheet for estimating future projects.

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