TeaIsTasty

It sounds obvious, but it’s not always as easy as it seems to estimate the hours you’ll need to finish a project, especially if you haven’t actually done what you’re proposing to do! However,  it’s necessary to learn or you’ll definitely lose out on money, or possibly the contract.  Having a strategy to figure out how much time it will take you to finish a project can save you a lot of grief.  

1. Define the project

Before you get overwhelmed, define your project.  Are you designing a new website? Also developing the website?  Developing a web app? Designing a poster or flyer? Make it easy on yourself and layout what you’re going to be working on.

This is more of a mental preparation than anything, but if you clearly define your project it will be easier to asses exactly what needs to be done.

2. Itemize the steps in the project

Take a look at your project as a series of little projects put together.  Then you can start assiging hours to each of these little projects. 

Take a look at the what might be a basic set of steps for the creation of a new Wordpress website:

1. Create a graphic comp – 6 hours
2. Turn the graphic comp into an HTML/CSS layout – 3 hours
3. Theme Wordpress installation – 12 hours
4. Error Check / Browser Compatability Check – 4 hours

Voila! Add these steps together and you get 25 hours.  Now you can tell your prospective client, “I can get your custom Wordpress site up and running in 25 hours.”

3. Speck out the technology

If you’re going to be using a technology you’re unfamilliar with, go check it out before you quote on it.  Install it. Try and create something with it. Check out the support forums for it.  Does it have a steep or shallow learning curve?  Do you know anyone you can refer to for help?

Find out what you’re getting yourself into before you commit to a certain number of hours.  But remember, you might have to take a slight hit here because your client may not way to pay more so you can learn to educate yourself on a new technology.

4. Rely on your past experience

Your own experience is by far and away the most useful tool in estimating hours.  If you’ve developed even one website, or printed one poster, you should have an idea of how long it took you.  Remember what it took to learn the code, find that color palate, get the stock imagery together.  Use it as a guide for your next project.

5. Set Standard Estimates

Once you have a good idea of how long it takes you to do something, make it a standard rate.  Does it usually take you between 6 and 10 hours to develop a completely polished web design comp? If so, then set your standard rate at 8 hours.  

This makes it really easy to get proposals together on the fly and ballpark figures with prospective clients.

After a few projects, re-evaluate your rates to see if they’re still relevant.  Most likely the more experience you have, the faster you’ll work and you can reduce your hours, take more clients, and even raise your rate!