{"id":4616,"date":"2010-07-21T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T14:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4616"},"modified":"2010-07-17T21:56:21","modified_gmt":"2010-07-18T04:56:21","slug":"getting-beyond-padded-estimates-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=4616","title":{"rendered":"Getting beyond padded estimates — part two!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pushing<\/a>
Pushing back on team members<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Your team members get a bit wiggy in giving you an accurate estimate for a lot of reasons. \u00a0Maybe they have no idea how long the task will take, or maybe they’re afraid they’ll get pulled away to fix the CEO’s email account for the third time that week.<\/p>\n

You can help your team members feel confident in giving you accurate commitments by asking for a range of dates for delivery.<\/p>\n

A range of estimates doesn\u2019t mean you adopt the latest date, just to be on the safe side.\u00a0 Parkinson\u2019s Law says, \u201cWork expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.\u201d\u00a0 If you give most of us more time than we need to do a task, we will often use that extra time to make the task \u201cbetter,\u201d by adding features, doing additional testing, etc.\u00a0 While obviously good intentioned, this kind of \u201cgold plating\u201d will make the project take longer than it should, and may introduce new issues and risks.<\/p>\n

The best way to get a range of estimates for a task: Instead of asking Joyce when her task will be completed, as her for a best-case scenario, worst-case scenario, and most likely scenario.\u00a0 Discussing the rationale behind her numbers will bring up risks and issues. Also, now that Joyce feels like she doesn\u2019t have to deliver it at the first opportunity, or to be safe and pick the last possible date, she will feel more confident committing to a reasonable date, which she has 90% confidence of achieving.<\/p>\n

In order to get a good range of dates, allow each team member enough time to think through the problem before getting a commitment.\u00a0 If you ask a team member to estimate a task on the spot, he will probably make up a number quickly just to make you go away.\u00a0 Giving folks the time to come up with a careful estimate will pay off in greater accuracy in delivery.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You can also get around padded estimates by asking for task effort, instead of duration. \u00a0Let me explain.<\/p>\n

If you ask your team members, \u201cWhen can you get this task done?\u201d their answer will vary, as they calculate other projects they might be working on, other issues that might come up.\u00a0 Instead, consider asking, \u201cOk, pretend you can work uninterrupted, nonstop on this task, with all the caffeine you can drink. What\u2019s the number of hours you need to get it done?\u201d\u00a0 Once you know the amount of effort required, it allows you to add in all the variables to come to a real duration.\u00a0 Your team member shouldn\u2019t have to do that calculation on his own. Be sure that the estimate you develop together takes into account the skill level of the folks doing the work. Just because it might take a normal person 3 days to complete this task, doesn\u2019t mean that it will take Alice three days.\u00a0 It might take her one afternoon, because she has specialized skill, or it might take her a week, because she needs to come up to speed on some underlying concepts before she can really get going.<\/p>\n

No one works 100% of the time.\u00a0 By acknowledging this in our estimation process, we can get to more accurate duration estimates.<\/p>\n

By explicitly examining and working through all the buffers needed, you get the information you need to estimate as accurately as you can during planning. The more uncertainty, the greater the buffer.\u00a0 You can have contingency amounts for a particularly risky work package, or for the project as a whole.<\/p>\n

The size of the contingency, and whether it is at the work package or project level, is entirely dependent on the risk inherent in the project at the time the schedule is developed. So you see, padding isn\u2019t always bad \u2013 just as long as YOU\u2019RE the one doing the padding!<\/p>\n

Help your team start each of their tasks as soon as possible in the schedule, as this will also reduce risk and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

And above all, make sure that some externally mandated date doesn\u2019t drive the thought process for your team members! You need to understand what it really takes to deliver on tasks, not drive your people to a death march. This can be tough, as some of your shareholders may assume that everyone pads their estimates, so they may want you to cut the commitments you\u2019ve made. This is not a game you want to start playing! Be ready to carefully defend your schedule if challenged.<\/p>\n

If estimates for some tasks are still fuzzy, it might be a sign that you need to break that task down into lower level tasks, in order to get to a clearer estimate.\u00a0 If your work breakdown structure is flawed, your estimates will be inaccurate, so it might be a good time to make sure you don\u2019t need to refine things a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your team members get a bit wiggy in giving you an accurate estimate for a lot of reasons. \u00a0Maybe they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,5,9],"tags":[234,792,492],"class_list":["post-4616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-priorities-2","category-time-management","category-risk-management","tag-estimation","tag-padding","tag-scheduling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}