Could your team members improve their estimates? My own estimates are consistently too low by a factor of 1.5. How do I know? Well, I track my time on a project. At the end of the project, I compare my total hours to the sum of the original estimates in the Resource Sheet as shown below. From this, I can determine my personal estimating factor that is useful for future estimates: 21/14 = 1.5. You can do the same for your team members:

This helpful tip was taken from Eric Uyttewaal’s book, Forecast Scheduling, now available for purchase.