Factors in Time and Cost Estimating

In the section on estimating times you can read about the various approaches to use. The question still remains how do you estimate times when you don't have a lot of experience and there are no records of such a project ever having been done before? What criteria do you use to estimate the time for individual tasks?

And the answer is : two criteria -- the complexity of the task and the expertise of the project team

Complexity of the Task

The history of project management parallels that of structured programming. Both started out as an art form, practiced by gurus, rather than a set of skills that could be taught and learned.

Both programming and project management have become "structured" which means that programmers and project planners tend to modularize everything in sight. Programmers create modules called functions and procedures. Project planners create the equivalent modules called "sub-tasks".

The benefit of breaking a task into its component parts (modularization) is that the sub-tasks are usually easier to imagine and it's more likely that you can make an educated guess about the amount of time and money it will take to do a subtask.

So, if you start out with a complex project, you'll probably wind up with dozens of subtasks--all of which will take time.

Expertise of the Project Team

The more knowledgeable the people are, the more likely it is that they'll be able to meet or exceed the "most likely" time for a task. In the programming area, you would look for team members who have experience with the operating system and the computer language being used. For instance don't put veteran COBOL programmers on a C++, Windows 95 project. Look for people who can buy into the project. Some companies assign programmers to tasks based only on their availability. A better approach is to let programmers bid on a project in a competitive fashion. And always remember: programmers aren't additive. If five programmers are working on a project, adding five more won't shorten the time to complete the task. It may even create communication log jams and lengthen the time.

Press ESC or click the on-screen Back button to return to the previous document.