ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS PROCESS CODE
For example, if a simple module required two days to code and unit test on average, and a highly complex routine required 20 days, it was simply a matter of reviewing the design, assigning complexity to each module to be constructed, and then doing the math. Over time our teams had developed the ability to rank different modules with varying degrees of complexity, and apply an estimate of expected effort to each complexity. This worked particularly well during the execution phase of our projects. The result – more projects were delivered successfully on time and within budget, with fewer “death marches” for our staff.Īnother estimating technique that we used was parametric estimating.
Our clients and prospective clients began to rely on our estimation of activity and project durations. As we accumulated historical information, staff effort, and productivity metrics, our ability to estimate and propose new jobs became much more reliable.
Notice that I said we used actual, not estimated, work effort from prior projects to develop the duration and resource estimates for the new project. Given that single industry focus, many of our proposal estimates were able to use a technique called analogous estimating.Using this technique, we were able to use actual activity durations and staff effort from previous project deliveries to derive analogous estimates for the new project. Perhaps I was fortunate that my consulting career was largely within a single industry. For some unknown reason, whenever they estimated activity durations that didn’t fit within their clients’ requested timelines, someone (typically a “higher up” who was not responsible for delivery) would invariably say, “throw some extra bodies at it.” Of course, this virtually guaranteed a late project before it even started.Īs I noted in my previous article, “Why You Should Educate Management on Estimating Activity Durations,” we project management professionals need to wrestle control back to those of us who are in the trenches to provide realistic timelines for our projects. It seems that in the exuberance of estimating a new project, IT providers would conveniently forget this truism. It was certainly true of execution, but what of the estimating process?
ESTIMATE ACTIVITY DURATIONS PROCESS SOFTWARE
Throughout my career I was always aware of Brooks’ Law: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later” (Brooks, 1975, p.25). This term is defined in the 5th edition of the PMBOK.The 4 Best Techniques for Estimating Activity Durations This will ensure that everything will be right on schedule. Estimate activity duration is a critical step in project management because it helps project managers accurately and precisely creates estimates of the project activities. Seeking expert judgment is also crucial in this process.Īll of these can lead to updates on the project documents as well as the activity duration estimates. Project managers can also use reserve analysis and group decision-making techniques to be able to give a good estimate of the project activities. This is the reason why estimation techniques like analogous estimating, parametric estimating and three points estimating are very crucial. The stability of the schedule of the activities depends on the accuracy of the duration of the entire project activities. On the other hand, developing the project schedule requires several techniques. All of these things are necessary to come up with a good estimate for each individual task involved in the project life cycle. To make the estimate activity duration, it is important that you look into the necessary inputs such as the schedule management plan, activity list, activity attributes, resource calendars, project scope statement, risk register, resource breakdown structure, enterprise environmental structure and the organizational process assets. The benefit of this particular process is that it provides the amount of time that each activity will require in order for it to be accomplished. It is important for project managers to carry out estimate activity durations to be able to plan activities based on its three attributes.Įstimate activity duration is a process in project management that involves analyzing different activity and estimates how long it takes to accomplish a certain task with the estimated amount of resources. All project management activities have three unique attributes and these include duration, work effort, and resource.
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