Practical Project Management

To be honest, I often found myself questioning the reality of the estimates when I started my career in project management. The process wasn’t well managed – there was no consistent process to manage. What often happened was the work package lead would estimate the work to complete a deliverable, or a milestone, and base it on their experience doing the work. That approach goes sideways quickly when they are basing it on having done the work a year ago, or more, and under different circumstances. When the estimate is built this way and you run into delays, you often hear the technical people say, “duh, the estimate was way too optimistic.” It may make you want to scream, but screaming doesn’t help – well maybe for the duration of the scream it will. What the PM needs is a realistic estimate of the effort and duration so that they can manage the deviations from schedule rather than have to micro manage every activity and milestone.

First, let me guess at the process the work package leader goes through to self estimate. Step 1 – when I did this kind of work it only took a couple of weeks to perform this kind of task.  Step 2 – things are easier now, so it shouldn’t take as long let’s say a week. Step 3 – … no step 3.

Now what would I like the work package leader to do? Step 1 – identify the person who will do the work. Step 2 – talk to that person about the effort involved. Step 3 – put all the effort estimates against the activities and review with the work package team for reasonableness. Step 4 – make the updates (there will be updates). Step 5 – present a worse case, best case, likely case estimate.

Why is there a gap between what the PM wants and what the work package leader does? There are as many reasons as there are people involved. Here are what I think are the two reasons that can be changed to help improve the reliability of the schedule.  And, that’s all we really need, right?

Number 1 reason for the gap…….. lack of communication of expectations. As the PM, you need to communicate what you need from people. When you ask the work package leader to develop the estimated effort and duration, tell them what process you expect them to follow. In an organization with a clear and communicated methodology that includes an estimating process, you need to remind the work package leader to use that process. Don’t have an estimating process? Communicate what you need as though there was a process – enough success in estimating will create a de facto process. Don’t like the process that is set up? Communicate what you need based on the agreed process and the lessons learned from other projects. Work in an organization that values seat of the pants heroics – get out if you can; you’ll only be frustrated – okay really, communicate what you need and the benefits to them that come from having a realistic schedule. Do you see a pattern here? Communicate based on what you need them to produce.

Number 2 reason for the gap…… cultural issues that support “fire, ready, aim” or lack of attention to planning. This is a much harder nut to crack. If the culture is acknowledged as ineffective then you have a chance to prove the value of proper planning but you’ll be fighting an uphill battle until you have successes to point to for proof of your approach. Until then, you have the undesirable job of pointing to failures and offering opportunities. If the culture isn’t acknowledged as ineffectual or even celebrated as innovation and creativity… get out?  Obviously, that’s not the best approach. You need to examine the reasons why a corporate culture would see this as success. Have they been successful but at high cost – a common outcome of this culture – approach it from a “let’s be more successful” approach adding metrics for efficiency. Or, is it a fear that process and structure will stifle creativity or innovation? This one is more of a gut feeling culture. You might want to approach it in a “process and structure free people to be creative” approach.  Michelangelo didn’t just slap paint on the ceiling; he worked through a process so that the painting on the ceiling part was as simple as possible. A more current metaphor for structure – you don’t create a good website by getting a domain, host and then sticking some pages up. You have a process to develop a good website.

It comes down to this, you can be successful if you don’t have a schedule, it will likely take a lot of crisis management and overtime, but you can’t sustain the energy or engagement of the team over the long term. With good planning and estimation, you will still have excitement in your project (don’t we all like that part of project management?) but you will also have a way to alleviate anxiety about the project and more confidently predict outcomes.

There are plenty of workshops and sessions on line about best practices for estimating. Add your comment about a best practice you have seen, or used.