One of the biggest challenges in project management is estimating project effort. Many project managers run into problems, because they have underestimated the time, resources and budget they need to complete the project successfully.
Blogwatch: 10 guidelines for estimating project effort
Sabine Pfleger, Friday 23 August 2013 | Reading time: unknownThe project management coach and author Susanne Madsen provides the readers of her blog with valuable tips on how to get the estimated times and costs for a project right.
In 10 steps, she explains that analysis and estimation need to be an ongoing process throughout the entire project. An estimation will always carry a certain degree of uncertainty. Unexpected things will come up in every project, so turning a blind eye on project risks and just following a best case scenario when estimating efforts will not benefit the project.
Some project managers tend to neglect side issues of a project, such as analysis, training, testing etc, that also consume time and budget. Susanne Madsen highly recommends backing up estimations with data and documenting accurately how the team arrived at them, in case the client or important stakeholders question the results later.
Susanne Madsen’s blog post is a good read for all project team members who are involved in the estimation process of a project. You'll find the complete article at Susanne Madsen’s blog.