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Rockstar Estimating Guide

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© 2018 Chalder Consulting Inc.

About The Presenter

Ron Smith is a PMP® Certified Project Manager and Founder of Chalder Consulting headquartered in Moncton New Brunswick.

Specializing in:

• Business and IT Project Management

• Troubled Project Recovery

• Software Development Lead

• Evolving Companies and Teams

• Tools

Contact [email protected] :: www.chalder.ca



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Rockstar Estimating Guide

Agenda

1. Quick intro on Estimation Basics2. Developer Brain vs. Manager Brain3. Event Chains4. Probability with Events5. Evolving Estimation IQ6. Estimates, Not Guesses7. Agile Estimation8. Is Estimation Art or Science?9. What Now?



1. Biggest Issue with Estimating today?

2. Who has lived through an underestimated project?

3. Who has attended training on how to estimate?

4. Does your organization track corporate targets to find trends in projects and distribute them?

Poll

The estimation process is the #1 contributor to a positive or negative work environment.

Rockstar Estimating GuideGet class handouts @ ManagingProjects.ca/PDDays/


A cost estimate is the approximation of the cost of a program, project, or operation. Cost estimate has a single total value and may have identifiable component values.

- Wikepedia

Cost Estimate

Quick intro on Estimation Basics


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate

Estimate quality refers to the delineation of quality requirements for the estimate. These requirements are set out in accordance with formal quality assurance standards.

Published quality requirements generally have to do with credibility, accuracy, confidence level, precision, risk, reliability, and validity of the estimate, as well as thoroughness, uniformity, consistency, verification, and documentation.

- Wikepedia

Estimate Quality



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate

An example for a definitive estimate might be that the estimate has a -5/+10% range of accuracy with a 90% confidence that the final value will fall in that range.

- Wikepedia

Definitive Estimate



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate#Estimate_quality

A contingency may be included in an estimate to provide for unknown costs which are indicated as likely to occur by experience, but are not identifiable.

- Wikepedia

Contingency



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate#Contingency

A structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts.

The experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator or change agent[5] provides an anonymized summary of the experts' forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments.

Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their panel.

- Wikepedia

Delphi Method



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

Developed at the beginning of the Cold War to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. In 1944, General Henry H. Arnold ordered the creation of the report for the U.S. Army Air Corps on the future technological capabilities that might be used by the military.

- Wikepedia

Delphi Method



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

Lines of code were a common means of estimating an IT project.

LOC



DEVELOPER - BRAIN

• I just want to start coding

• Does not sound that hard

• I’m busy – not much time for detail

• Need to present the funding amount for approval.

• Need to size the project correctly.

• I wonder if the person I’m speaking with usually under estimates, over estimates or is pretty good.

• I wonder if we will run into issues.

MANAGER - BRAIN

Developer Brain vs. Manager Brain

@ Project Startup… How long will it take to build a new customer screen??

8 hours 16 hours


DEV - BRAIN

• meetings

▪ Project Kick off (1 hour)▪ Requirements gathering (3

hours)▪ Requirements review (1 hour)▪ 2 weekly teem meetings (2

hours)• prototype requested… add 4 hours• I forget my estimate

• review estimates vs actuals monthly.

• Might be focused on the overall detailed tasks but very focused on the month over month spend.

• We may need to change the scope already… I’ll start pulling together new estimates

MANAGER - BRAIN

@ 3 weeks into project… How long will it take to build a new customer screen??

ASK A DEVELOPER HOW LONG 10 HOURS WILL TAKE

and they will estimate 2 hours. ☺



DEV - BRAIN

• I’ve built something great

• Client should be happy

• On to my next project

• Project is way over budget / time

• The business case is blown

• Client is already mad

• How am I going to explain this?

• Why did that 8 hour screen take 148 hours?

MANAGER - BRAIN

@ project closeout… How long will it take to build a new customer screen??



Estimate to do x?

Let’s roll the movie back…

Step 1

Don’t collect the answer yet

You are about to influence corporate culture.


• Step 2: Ask / provide answers

– Do I need to attend weekly or specific project meetings?

– Do I need to follow a formal process (which one)?

– Is a prototype required?

– Is there a working app today that I’ll be adding to – or is this net new? Does a db exist already?

– Do I have to interface with any systems?

– Does this have to work in the Disaster Recovery model?

Estimate to do x?


• Step 2 (continued):

– What are the localization and internationalization requirements?

– Will I be participating in requirements gathering? Are the requirements written already? Can I see them?

– Is Management in line with waterfall or Agile Change Acceptance?

– Are you expecting a design or test cases from me?

– Will I be participating in Integration, System or UAT testing?

– How does this project rank among the other corporate projects?

Estimate to do x?



– Will I need to be on stand by to test with other projects?

– What are the relevant regulatory requirements?

– Will data for development and testing be provided to me or am I responsible for inventing sample data?

– Data cleansing of data required?

– Am I responsible for creating release and installation documentation?

Estimate to do x?



– Corporate architecture standards or policies to conform to?

– Available to support the functionality after it launches?

– Any known risks and dependencies?

– What time of year are you running this project?

– Review past project risk and issue logs - lingering past lessons learned.

– Add your own questions to the above list.

Estimate to do x?


• Step 3:

– Get answers to above questions before estimating.

– Add your own questions to the above list.

– Review past project risk and issue logs.

– 3 review cycles with teams before trusting estimates.

• Great team members will

– Keep your own personal estimation history with dates and scope

– Offer to help the manager with the estimate.

– Ask your manager for your % allocation by project and by Month

Estimate to do x?


• Example: Student returning from collage on a train, then bus, then taxi.

• What if the train is late (weather event)?

• What if the bus is late?

• If that same weather event is happening in the town where the bus station is, it might also push back the bus.

• Weather events are more likely to impact travel in the winter (higher risk). So put more contingency planning on travel in the winter.

Event Chains


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_chain_methodology#Event_chains

• Monte Carlo simulations: As the project progresses you may become more aware of risk potential like a long term weather forecast showing bad weather on a travel day.

• Critical Chain events are the ones that have the highest potential to affect the project. (One of the reason the Critical chain view in MS Project).

• Performance tracking: Use the actual data as the project progresses to understand the impacts that are about to occur. The “moment of risk” defined as one of the event parameters.

Event Chains


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_chain_methodology#Event_chains

Task Hours

Ride Train (sometimes 30 minutes late) 2.50

Wait 20 minutes (or 2 hours until next) for bus 0.30

Ride Bus 2.00

Wait 10 minutes for taxi 0.15

Ride Taxi 0.15

TOTAL PLANNED 5.1

Critical

Event Chains


• What is the probability of flipping a coin that heads will be shown?

• What is the probability that a snowstorm would impact your project in July/February?

• Do you have a list of snow closures by month over the past few years by office geography?

• Understanding if project staff members are still billing against the project if they are home… or is the billing each hour of work?

• What is the probability vacations will impact the project in the following months? Dec, Feb, March, July, Aug?

• What is the probability of religious holidays impacting your project in the fall?

• What are your team/corporate attrition rates?

Probability with Events


– Sr. Management will challenge the estimate – as they should

– The end client will challenge the estimate – as they should

– Show you have done your due-diligence

– We are just adding a screen – simple right? (just a table?)

Does the Project Manager have the details?

Funding Approvals


• Study the process

Draw Inputs and Outputs answer the why question – then the how

• Resource timing supporting the why

Remove BAs or Test Leads (hooks for automated testing)

Funding Approvals


SERVER SIDE SCREENS WORKING

• Oracle 10g backend

• Standard SQL allowed

• Typical Web server

• Server (online)

• Oracle Lite (subset of structure)

• ANSI SQL (subset of SQL functions)

• Web Server: Oracle Web-to-Go normally used for handhelds

• Laptop (can work offline)

CLIENT SIDE (NOT STARTED)

Real world example of a project that is hard to estimate.

Port 100 screens with a scarcity of SME on the technology.

Estimates not Guesses


Initial Estimate

• 1/2 day per screen

• 50 days

Test your estimate

• 33 High – 4 days

• 33 Med – 3 days

• 34 LOW – 2 days

• 299 days

Re-estimate…

• Land on 250 days

Port 100 screens

If you give me 3 days I can try one and that will allow us to make a good estimate

Estimate / Test / Re-Estimate


10 10 10

8

22

6

8

4

2

JUNE JULY AUG SEPT OCT

Month over Month Spread

Poorly staffed Well Staffed

Spreading your estimate over the months correctly is just as important as getting the total project estimate correct.

Month over Month Spread of Resources


2

6

8

4

2

7

8 8

7

8 8

7

8 8

7

8 8

4

2

3

6

8

4

2

3

6

8

4

2

3

6

8

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Project 1 Project 3 Project 4 Project 5

Spreading your estimate over the months correctly is just as important as getting the total project estimate correct.

If you can keep the team size consistent you will get faster.

Month over Month Spread of Resources


4

5

6

7

8

# productive hours/day How many hours / day is the industry productive?

10-1 Ratio between your fastest and slowest resource in IT. This gets amplified on a team.

Is there a variable measure?

Some hard times of the year to run a project are Summer, March Break & Christmas.

Are we getting faster over time? Are the same resources present?

Productivity


Questions to determine ProductivityIs the team co-located?

Does the team work in different time zones?

Is this a multi-cultural team?

How familiar is the team with the technology?

How good is the communication on the team?

How stable are the requirements?

Does the team include relevant Subject Matter Experts?

How has the team performed in the past?

Productivity


Story Points1. Determined by developers2. Take lowest and highest in list and then guess in terms of

relatives in-between the min and max.

Value Points:1. Determined by Customer/Owner2. Rank them by Value

Order the work by providing value early. The end of project might result in low value items being dropped off the project.

Agile Estimations


• For each deliverable: Create, team reads, team reviews, update, check into CM.

• Code and fix bugs, source control, builds

• You may be reworking some deliverable as the project progresses

List deliverables by stage and role

Is Estimation Art or Science?


• Weekly team meeting

• Regular status reports

List repeating meeting by person



• Overhead and resource engagement who need to be involved

Sideline interaction by role



• Time of year

• Productivity per day

• A model that is supposed to get faster

• Process you need to learn

• May have a new team

Productivity



Evidence Based Scheduling – Manuscript



Planning Poker (PlanningPoker.com)



Function Point counting – difficult with different technologies (inputs and outputs)

Shopping Cart Sizing

Excel spreadsheet including total project

Historical analysis

What technologies do you use?



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Documents

Get class handouts @ ManagingProjects.ca/PDDays/ Rockstar ... · Project Kick off (1 hour) Requirements gathering (3 hours) ... –Is Management in line with waterfall or Agile Change