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In each of the following scenarios for planning Steve and Susan’s wedding determine which of the five activity duration estimation tools and techniques is being used.
Sally comes up with three estimates (one where everything goes wrong, one where some things go wrong, and one where nothing goes wrong) for printing invitations, and average them together to come up with a final number.
Three-point estimate.
Sally comes up with three estimates (one where everything goes wrong, one where some things go wrong, and one where nothing goes wrong) for printing invitations, and averages them together to come up with a final number.
Three-point estimate.
There are two different catering companies at the wedding. Sally asks the head chef at each of them to give her an estimate of how long it will take each of them to do the job.
Expert judgment.
There’s a spreadsheet Sally always uses to figure out how long it takes guest to RSVP. She enters the number of guests and their zip codes, and it calculates estimates for her.
Parametric estimating.
Sally’s done four weddings that are very similar to Steve and Susan’s, and in all four of them it took exactly the same amount of time for the caterers to set up the reception hall.
Analogous estimating.
You’ve got a list of activities, you know what resources are needed to actually do each activity, and you’ve got your estimation tools and techniques, now you have enough information to create the estimate! The activity duration estimates are an estimate of how long each activity in the activity list will take. This is a quantitative measure usually expressed in hours, weeks, days, or months. Any work period is fine, and you’ll use different work periods for different jobs. A small job (like booking a DJ) may just take a few hours; a bigger job (like catering-including deciding on a menu, ordering ingredients, cook food and serving guests on the big day) could take days.
Another thing to keep in mind when estimating the duration of the activities, is determining the effort involved. Duration is the amount of the time that an activity takes, while effort if the total number of person-hours that are expended. If it takes two people six hours to carve the ice sculpture for the centerpiece of a wedding, the duration is six hours. But if two people worked on it for the whole time, it took twelve person-hours of effort to create!
You’ll also learn more about the specific activities while you’re estimating them. That’s something that always happens. You have to really think through all of the aspects of a task in order to estimate it. As you learn more about the specific activities remember to update the activity attributes .
If we go back to our case study of the wedding we can see that while Sally has got a handle on how long things are going to take, that’s not enough to get the job done. She still has some work to do before she’s got the whole project under control. Steve and Susan know where they want to get married, and they’ve got the place booked now, but what about the caterer? They have no idea who’s going to be providing food. And what about the band they want? Will the timing with their schedule work out?
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