The coastline paradox and project estimation

Estimating how much time a novel, complex project will take to complete can be as difficult as measuring a coastline. And measuring a coastline is surprisingly difficult.

“Geographical curves are so involved in their detail that their lengths are often infinite or more accurately, undefinable.”

Benoit Mandelbrot, How long is the coast of Britain?, 1967

”An example of the coastline paradox. If the coastline of Great Britain is measured using units 100 km long, then the length of the coastline is approximately 2,800 km. With…