Estimating Time and Cost in IT Projects Without Requirements

March 12, 2025

By Mohsin Khurshid

Task Description: IT projects are particularly challenging as we are frequently asked for cost and time estimates before we do the Requirements Phase. Write about how IT professionals can attempt to estimate time and cost when we don’t know the requirements yet. (This is a real issue that many of you have faced. Feel free to provide examples, etc.)

Solution:

With the passage of time, the industry is growing and IT projects are increasing. The two major factors of any project are the cost and the time. The project must have to be completed within less time and less cost. Normally, the time and cost estimation can be given after the requirement phase. The challenging issue that is faced while doing the IT projects is giving the time and cost estimate before doing the requirement phase.

The adaptive approach can be used for the purpose of requirements elicitation. The requirements should be discussed multiple times with the clients. In this way, you will have more accurate details of the requirements. These details of the requirements will help you to estimate the cost and time more accurately.

There are different other methods that you can adopt to give the estimation of cost and time. These methods are given below.

Planning Poker

This is also known as scrum poker. This technique can be helpful for agile teams in estimating the total time and effort required for the project (Planning Poker, n.d.). The participants use cards that are similar to the playing cards. The estimate is written on these cards by each participant. All participants show their cards after writing their estimates. After that, the participants do the discussion until they agree on a particular estimation.

Interviews

This is another method that you can use to have an idea about the time period and cost required for the project completion. The interview can be conducted with the customers of the product or end users. You can discuss the product features and their expectations.

Brainstorming Sessions

Brainstorming is actually a meeting between the stakeholders for the discussion that can be physical or virtually (What is Brainstorming? , 2019). In this discussion, requirements can be discussed to estimate the cost and time.

Business Survey

This is a kind of questionnaire in which questions are given to the business users. The questions that are given to the users are related to the requirements and cost of the project.

Need expert help? Contact AcademiaBees.com for reliable academic support!