Software Development Work Estimation

Problem Addressed

Software quotes and schedules often get stuck on one step: the requirements are too large, hard to split, and too ambiguous to estimate. A requirements document mixes features, business rules, and technical assumptions, while manual estimates can miss dependencies across backend, algorithm, and testing work, or mistake parallel staffing for lower total effort. This skill turns requirements into reviewable work items and provides effort and risk estimates using a consistent set of dimensions.

How It Works

Input can be a requirement description or a document path such as .md, .docx, or .txt. The workflow includes:

• Requirement decomposition: splits features into work modules and maps them to requirements analysis, design, frontend, backend, algorithm, and testing.
• Effort estimation: for each item, provides workload, complexity, risk level, parallel feasibility, and prerequisites.
• Excel output: generates a multi-sheet report with an overview, dimension-level details, a Gantt chart, high-risk items, coordination dependencies, and cost estimation.

The Gantt chart skips weekends and statutory holidays. The cost estimate covers labor, software and hardware services, and includes roughly a 15% contingency buffer.

Scope and Caveats

The skill assumes a baseline team setup of one frontend engineer, one backend engineer, and one tester, which fits small-to-medium requirements for early scoping and proposal review. Parallel work shortens calendar duration but does not reduce total person-days. Actual delivery still needs adjustment based on team proficiency, technical debt, external interfaces, and change rate.