Estimation Blues

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Estimation Blues

George Jucan, MSc, PMP, OCP

October 17, 2005






Both while preparing estimates for bidding in a competitive process or for inclusion in a business case (justification report, etc.) for internal projects, the project manager is faced with the challenging task of providing time and effort estimates based on a fuzzy, high-level description of the project scope. At this level, many times there is not even a high-level WBS developed, so most of the classic estimating techniques cannot be applied.
 
Theoretically, these initial estimates should be detailed and refined at subsequent steps, but so many times the initial numbers become binding or require extensive explanations for any adjustment, so the project managers spend countless hours trying to reach the most probable estimate to minimize later need for change.
 
In many cases the project manager assembles a group of the project architects and/or most senior resources in order to discuss as a group each element of the high level scope description in order to agree on a single estimate for each scope item.



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