[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I do find that developers often do underestimate the time needed to complete a task, but by the time a project is at the point of individual estimates for specific sets of work, the failure of a project has already been set in motion by factors far above estimates from a developer.

How well defined are the tasks? Are the tasks defined in user speak, or table names and fields. Someone other than the programmers needs to have a working knowledge of the tables, schema's and object models at a workable level.

[WillVoteForFood]

That’s an interesting question. The definition on tasks seems sometimes to have an odd relationship to how far behind a project has gotten. The more behind, the less well defined the tasks are. Whatever project discipline there might have been early on in the project tends to fly out the window as things get difficult and pressure rises.