

Practical Project Cost Management - robicch
http://blog.twproject.com/2013/06/03/practical-project-cost-management-with-teamwork/

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lotsofcows
"20 days subtask"

Blimey, I don't trust anyone to effectively estimate their time over any
period greater than 5 days. And I tell them to add 20%...

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anoressLucy
Someone else even likes to schedule 2h tasks.... and the planning never stops!

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_pmf_
I've been taught to estimate in logarithmic units, i.e. 1 h, 2 h, 4 h, 8 h
(i.e. 1 d), 2 d, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month

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korkmitsumi
Maybe too simplified but effective

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jacques_chester
How'd this advertisement wind up on the front page?

My main problems are that the author has failed to distinguish between
estimates and plans. They are not the same, or rather, they should be treated
differently.

When you consider plans and estimates as identical, two things happen.

First, your estimates start becoming subject to political pressure. After all,
the only reason anyone starts a project is to meet some goal or goals. And
those goals tend to come with certain constraints. If you work backwards from
the goal, you get a plan and then suddenly, if the plan disagrees with the
estimate, guess where the pressure goes?

Likewise, if you simply take your estimate and transform it into the plan,
you've failed to plan adequately. An estimate is a probablistic statement
about some future outcome. By itself it fulfills one and _only_ one of the
required features of a plan:

* Job sizing: How big is this job, and how long do you expect it to take?

* Job structure: How are you going to do the work? What will you do first, second and so on?

* Job status: How do you know where you are? Are you going to finish on time and are the costs under control?

* Assessment: How good was your plan? Did you make any obvious errors, what mistakes should you avoid in future, and how can you do a better job next time?

If the estimates _were actual estimates_ , expressed in terms of uncertainty,
then the "overflow" statement is a nonsense. In fact all such approaches are a
nonsense, as they require hundreds of people to miraculously become expert
forecasters in what are often novel tasks. Given how many ways people can fall
into the "planning fallacy", that's unfair. Estimation deserves at least a
structured process of its own -- whether by parametric model, points poker or
PERT 3-point estimation.

Disclaimer: I'm a bit of a wingnut about estimation and I've been working on a
tool to make it easier and better.

