Project Management - Blog 4 - The Art of Project Estimation

THE ART OF PROJECT ESTIMATION

Today’s blog post is in relation to estimating and how a good project manager can ensure that project estimates are precise. What is the origin of good projects failings? When designing a website, setting up a business, or building a house, in order for a project to become successful, accurate estimates are essential. Accurate estimation is every manager’s skill for good project management.

Estimating Project Times and Costs

A good foundation for every project control are quality time and cost estimates. When preparing estimates for our project, we decided the best starting point would be previous experiences to estimates, and this relates to previous projects part taken in the past. As an estimator, we have to take into consideration similar projects we have done or current resources and processes. We also rely on outside factors such as stakeholders, technology or downtimes that may affect a project. Estimating a project involves a quantitative estimate of project duration, costs, resources and is a critical part of project planning (Harned, 2014).

The key to successful estimates is to have a company’s culture that will allow us, project managers, to make an error without incrimination. To get the estimates that represent realistic average costs and times is very important, and for this reason it’s vital to dispose of a team that is highly motivated and skilled to help the project manager maintain their average in relation to task times and costs (Harned, 2014).

Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Project Management Strategies

There are two main techniques used in estimating process: top-down and bottom-up methods. The top-down approach works well when a project manager has a big picture of the project and all project’s details are clear to everyone. The bottom-up method is used when project team members classify the tasks and then divide them into specific work packages or groups. This approach is time-consuming but more detailed than the top-down (Makar, 2015).  

Both, stakeholders and project managers want accurate estimates of time and costs. These two groups need to balance project delivery with its accuracy. Managers must bear in mind different factors of the project such as actual costs, outside influences, and know what the scope is.

The challenges of project estimation – Why good projects fail?

In general, project estimation is a tough process as it can bring a number of problems and challenges. Often people over estimate the amount of time or costs (either too optimistic or pessimistic). The lack of experience or historical information (which can be a starting point to estimation) is also a common problem. Adding in poor risk-mitigation planning, immeasurable events (such as meetings, demonstrations, holidays, prototyping, etc), unexpected events or simply unfriendly company culture and work environment all add up to why good projects fail. On occasions bad leadership or management is the primary issue, especially where management doesn’t back their team members.

Bibliography

Harned, B., 2014. THE DARK ART OF PROJECT ESTIMATION. [Online]
Available at: https://www.teamgantt.com/guide-to-project-management/how-to-estimate-projects
[Accessed 2 March 2018].

Makar, A., 2015. Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up Project Management Strategies. [Online]
Available at: https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/how-long-is-that-going-to-take-top-down-vs-bottom-up-strategies/
[Accessed 3 March 2018].