Together with the companies Alcatel SEL, Knorr-Bremse, Rohde&Schwarz, Temic and Webasto by leadership of the author a BMBF sponsored research project has been carried out. The task and target of the project partners was to develop a reliable and workable forecasting model for duration and effort of an industrial development project. Up to now there is a lack of a systematic approach to forecast and to plan development time considering dynamic changes of the frame conditions. The following article describes the development and successful implementation of a forecasting model for development times and shows the effects by picturing and describing two case studies.