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Estimate Your Project Tasks Based on Effort, Not Calendar Time
September 17, 2008 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices, Scheduling
Estimate Your Project Tasks Based on Effort, Not Calendar Time (#18 in the series 21 Project Management Success Tips)
By Karl E. Wiegers
Estimate based on effort, not calendar time. People generally provide estimates in units of calendar time. I prefer to estimate the effort (in labor-hours) associated with a task, then translate the effort into a calendar-time estimate. A 20-hour task might take 2.5 calendar days of nominal full-time effort, or 2 exhausting days. However, it could also take a week if you have to wait for critical information from a customer or stay home with a sick child for two days. The translation of effort into calendar time is based on estimates of how many effective hours I can spend on project tasks per day, any interruptions or emergency bug fix requests I might get, meetings, and all the other places into which time disappears. If you keep track of how you actually spend your time at work, you’ll know how many effective weekly project hours you have available on average. Typically, this is only about 50 to 60 percent of the nominal time people spend at work, far less than the assumed 100 percent effective time on which so many project schedules are planned.
Adapted from “Practical Project Initiation: A Handbook with Tools” (Microsoft Press, 2007). A condensed version of this paper was published in Software Development magazine.
Karl Wiegers, Ph.D., is Principal Consultant with Process Impact, a software process consulting and education company in Portland, Oregon. Karl’s most recent book is “Practical Project Initiation: A Handbook with Tools.” Karl is also the author of four other books and 170 articles. Karl is a frequent speaker at software conferences and professional society meetings. You can reach Karl through www.projectinitiation.com or www.processimpact.com.
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