A Brief History Of (Estimating) Time
Week 1: Initiation and Planning · Lesson 7 ·
Stay PERT, everyone! Now we get into the grit (and nit?) of estimating your project completion time and developing workable schedules.
There are two steps to master the time constraints on your project: developing estimates and using those estimates to develop a schedule.
Ask for percentage of certainty on time estimates. That will give you more confidence working with estimates and may help you uncover issues
PERT - Program Evaluation And Review Technique; a formula to average all your estimates to come up with the most realistic idea of how long something will take.
A schedule allows everyone to see how they fit into the project, what tasks are interdependent on each other, and how every team fits into a cohesive whole.
Tip: Eat your frogs first - do the hard part and find answers for the fuzzy question marks and uncertainties.