Author: Oliver Gildersleeve
Oliver Gildersleeve, PMP, MCTS Oliver teaches Microsoft Project for PMI San Francisco and Silicon Valley chapters and for extensions of the University of California Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. He also does consulting and mentoring. He is a technical editor of Eric Uyttewaal’s recent three books on Microsoft Project scheduling. Formerly, he was a master scheduler for SAIC, vice president of EPM Solutions, and worked for Perot Systems, Franklin Templeton, a J&J’s medical device company, the Electric Power Research Institute, and Philadelphia Electric.
Analogous and Parametric Estimating Schedule Template
Download the template and presentation files for this session. Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDUs in the Technical category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Microsoft Project can be turned into an estimating tool with continuously improving data. Making schedules for specific projects from a template provides consistent schedule structure and vocabulary, accumulating lessons learned, and estimating data. The features enable two techniques, 1) analogous estimating, which is scaling parts of a schedule or an entire project estimate, and 2) parametric estimating, which is scaling the number of items a detail tasks produces. The download template also illustrates 1) how to include a risk reserve and estimating uncertainty buffer and 2) how to produce an Excel report with tabs for tasks recently completed, underway, and coming soon (Kanban). Presenter Info: Oliver Gildersleeve, PMP, MCTS Oliver teaches Microsoft Project for PMI San Francisco and Silicon Valley chapters and for extensions of the University of California Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. He also does consulting and mentoring. He is a technical editor of Eric Uyttewaal’s recent three books on Microsoft Project scheduling. Formerly, he was a master scheduler for SAIC, vice president of EPM Solutions, and worked for Perot Systems, Franklin Templeton, a J&J’s medical device company, the Electric Power Research Institute, and Philadelphia Electric. Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Analogous and Parametric Estimating
Microsoft Project, in its various releases (i.e., Online desktop, 2019, 2016, etc.), can become an accurate estimating tool for top-down (Analogous) and bottom-up (Parametric) estimating. This is accomplished by inserting custom columns and simple formulas. However, some tricks are necessary to get around user impediments. With accurate estimates, a Risk Reserve, an Estimating Uncertainty Buffer, and appropriate updating, a leveled schedule can provide a realistic and feasible current forecast of the delivery date for products and services, as well as a realistic basis for impact analysis of issues and change-requests. Unfortunately, the large majority of project managers estimate tasks with durations and update tasks by entering %-complete as reported by team members. Perhaps the reasons are that the column, “Durations,” appears when you first launch Microsoft Project, and furthermore, that resources think in terms of what they have accomplished on their deliverable, instead of in terms of a current estimate of work and their average hours on tasks per workday before successor task(s) can start. Definitions I would be remiss if I did not cover a few definitions before continuing. To manipulate Work, Units, and Duration on the same screen, view the Gantt Chart with the Work column inserted. On the View ribbon, check Detail. On its dropdown, select “Task Usage” with needed columns added (i.e., Assignment Units, Peak units, task Type, and Effort Driven). Before making a change to Work, Units, or Duration, identify which of the other two terms you want to be affected. Thus, the third term will be fixed (Fixed Units, Fixed Work, etc.) During planning, “Assignment Units” needs to be fixed or changed to avoid Microsoft Project calculating “Peak” units. For further clarification, see MPUG content on Task Types, so you’re ready for my upcoming webinar. Using a Schedule Template for Estimating Now, let’s circle back to the topic at hand. For accurate forecasting, it is better to begin planning using a schedule template, initially calibrated to workhour data derived from a past medium sized project. Copy the template to make a project schedule and scale the tasks according to the size of the current project. Appropriate updating keeps all progress appearing in the past and all remaining effort appearing in the future. Constantly alerted to product delivery date slippage, you can plan and implement schedule recovery while time allows. Actual work data provides a means to improve estimating data in the schedule template. It’s not hard to do. Here’s what a piece of what a parametric estimating schedule looks like: Here’s what an analogous estimating schedule looks like: Parametric estimating multiplies average effort per item by the number of items a detail task is expected to produce. For example, five work hours per part, times three parts equals 15 workhours for the task. Analogous estimating multiplies aggregate estimating data by a ratio. That is, the summary task effort of 40 workhours * 1.25 = 50 workhours. These views include estimating uncertainty, which can be set consistently throughout a schedule and is used to justify a project’s Estimating Uncertainty Buffer. That buffer pulls together from tasks the difference between their high and median estimates. Ahead of such buffer, insert a Risk Reserve using a lag that you reduce manually to compensate for delays from known risks that actually occur. Unknown risks are treated as issues as they arise. I’ll show the operation of these features and the techniques during my on-demand webinar. They will also be included in the associated schedule template available for download. You can copy these features to your schedule or schedule template using File > Organizer. Happy estimating!
Webinar: Estimate Tasks Parametrically
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1.5 PMI® PDU in the Technical Category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: Microsoft Project can be turned into an estimating tool that includes uncertainty and continuous improvement. Unfortunately, many estimate task duration’s from the recollections of one or more persons. Better is to re-schedule a past project as it should have occurred, producing Work estimating data. Then, for a new project, scale that data according to the size of the tasks to be performed. With all tasks set to Fixed Work, when resources with Assigned Units are applied to the new project’s tasks, their duration’s and the project’s product delivery date result. For continuous improvement, during the execution of new project(s), Actual Work can be collected as tasks complete. Good records can be used to improve estimating data that is retained in a schedule template. The use of a schedule template greatly reduces subsequent planning effort, and resulting schedules have consistent vocabulary, structure, and estimates. Download the template from this session Learning Objectives: Participants will see an easy path to developing estimates based on facts. The techniques close the loop between project tracking and subsequent estimating. Implementations may be judged as CMMI level 5, Optimizing. Relying on data defends against arbitrary cuts in estimates. Bids on fixed price opportunities become much less risky. More and more projects succeed. Speaker Bio: Oliver Gildersleeve, PMP, MCTS Oliver works remotely for DRC, a contractor providing project management support for government agencies. Previously he was with Franklin Templeton and J&J’s LifeScan, for both of which he was the single point of contact with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and their planning and estimating tool. When withdrawn from the market, he adapted and expanded those techniques and teaches them in courses for The Project Management Institute (PMI)® chapters in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Monterey and for San Francisco State and UC Santa Cruz. Weekends he teaches sailing for Club Nautique on San Francisco Bay and makes sail kits for Porta-Bote International. Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Webinar: Update Better
Project Management Institute (PMI)® Professional Development Units (PDUs): This Webinar is eligible for 1 PMI® PDU in the Technical Category of the Talent Triangle. Event Description: The way most PMs update task progress, there is no effect on successors or product delivery date. You will see a way that gives more and better information for managing a project and communicating with sponsors. This presentation shows the techniques described in the MPUG December 12th article, “Update Better.” You’ll also hear how to convince your organization to upgrade updating. Learning Objectives: You will upgrade from entering %-complete to using techniques that affect the task’s Finish date, prompting any recover decisions throughout the project. You will gather better status information and will configure Microsoft Project for rapid, easy updating. About the Presenter: Oliver Gildersleeve, PMP, MCTS, is lead planner on a Veterans Affairs 5 year major initiative. He co-founded an MPUG chapter and was president for 4 years. He teaches advanced scheduling for The Project Management Institute (PMI)® chapters: San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Monterey. He also teaches for San Francisco State and for UC Santa Cruz extensions. Have you watched this webinar recording? Tell MPUG viewers what you think! [WPCR_INSERT]
Update Better
The purpose of updating a schedule is to find out if the project is still on track. Updating tasks by “%-complete” doesn’t move the task’s Finish date, leaving successor tasks unaffected. Better: update by “Remaining Duration”. Updating with %-complete is inconsistent with its definition, shown at the right. Definitions appear when you hover over a column header. Look at the simplest case: It’s a task that is progressing uninterrupted by external events. Before any updating, set the Status date; the Status date tool is in the middle of the Project ribbon. Make the Status date visible: Format > Gridlines > Gridlines > Status date > -.-.-.-.-.-. Then, select the task(s) to be updated and on the Task tab, click “Mark on track”. From the task’s Start date to the project’s Status date is the task’s Actual Duration in business days. In this case, which includes two weekends, Microsoft Project already knows the planned Duration and the Actual Duration; thus, it calculates the %-complete automatically. So, what’s wrong with entering percentages into %-complete as if it were an input column? Incomplete parts of the task are left in the past or Progress appears to have happened in the future Successor tasks are unaffected The product delivery date is not affected No re-scheduling is prompted; instead trouble may accumulate Then, why do so many users update schedules with %-complete? Perhaps they are self-taught, without working through a good book such as Eric Uyttewaal’s, Forecast Scheduling (see pages 601-690). Without a time machine, it’s hard to get into the past or future to make further progress on a task. Additional progress can only occur in the present. Instead, affected task Finish dates can be easily produced by updating tasks consistent with the definitions by which Microsoft Project operates. To update with Remaining Duration takes no additional effort. Just ask your resource, what was the Actual Start date, were there any external interruptions, and “Is the Remaining Duration a good estimate?” To make updating convenient, a) assemble the updating tools in the Quick Access Toolbar, which initially appears in the upper left of the screen and b) modify a copy of the Tracking table: Quick Access Toolbar: Modify it using the dropdown arrow at its far right end. Select “All tools” and pick “Mark on track”, “Update task”, and “Move incomplete parts to the status date”. Use one or more “Separator” tools to group the tools. Tracking table: For updating a Duration estimated schedule: View > Tables > More tables > Tracking. Select and slide the Actual Start, Actual Duration, and Remaining Duration up against the Task Name column. Follow with Physical-%-complete. Leave the %-complete next. Hide unneeded columns. For Work estimated schedules, instead of the Duration columns, use Actual Work and Remaining Work. Updating a task If the task started late or early, click “Update task” and enter the Actual Start date. If the task was not interrupted, click “Mark on track” and ask if the Remaining Duration is a good estimate. (See “Progressing as scheduled” example at top.) If the task was interrupted by external events, click “Update task” and enter the number of uninterrupted workdays in Actual Duration, and ask if the Remaining Duration is a good estimate for the number of workdays needed after the task restarts. Then click “Move incomplete parts to the Status date”. Finally, click “Mark on track”. Better than estimating and updating with Durations is to use Workhours. To gather Actual Work easily, filter the Resource Usage view for “Incomplete tasks”, insert Start and auto-filter it > Filter > Before > {two weeks ahead}, then copy the Resource Names column into Excel, and put this timesheet in the cloud, e.g. DropBox, where all resources can update it. Daily, watch that critical tasks start as soon as possible. Weekly, for instance, enter the summed hours into Project’s Work table as Actual Hours and ask if the Remaining Hours are a good estimate. %-work-complete is calculated for you (it’s not an input field). If the culture is rooted in Duration estimating and updating with %-complete, to get similar results, set task types to Fixed Units and File > Options > Advanced > (at the bottom), check the following: Then, a task that is updated by %-complete will automatically shift so that progress moves to the Status date and the rest of the task extends from the Status date into the future.