5 ms·

Or you could apply proper, professional project management methods to make sure the last 20% doesn't take half the time of the entire project.

by MortenK 14y ago

ofacup 14y ago
just because your spreadsheet says it will take this long, doesn't mean reality will take a lot longer
- MortenK 14y ago
  True at project start, but the further you progress the more realistic the estimates will be. Half-way through, you can do much, much better than being caught with a 20% effort turning into 50% effort situation. However, if you start by doing an off the cuff estimate and expect that to hold throughout the project, well yes, then reality will be very different. That's the situation where you end up with a 20% or even 10% estimated effort ballooning into a 50% or more effort. But as the author suggests, just getting into it and working hard from the beginning won't make a difference. That will just ensure a project-long crunch which will be highly detrimental to team performance.
coldtea 14y ago
Yes, because those methods have worked wonders so far in IT projects, including multi-hundred million dollar ones...
- MortenK 14y ago
  If you consistently have the "last 20% takes 50% of the project" situation, then your scheduling is based on wishful thinking rather than past performance. No method guarantees project success, as can be seen from plenty of failed high-profile projects. But basic project management and estimation methods applied not only at project start, will definitely get you out of the very basic problem of "90% complete, forever".
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >If you consistently have the "last 20% takes 50% of the project" situation, then your scheduling is based on wishful thinking rather than past performance. There is no "past performance" for most projects, because they are different enough to prohibit extrapolations. The above holds for large IT projects and software construction of course. For a small shop making indie games or for a web shop churning websites what you say is perfectly possible.
    - MortenK 14y ago
      Past performance before a project start is the average of an organizations output in whatever estimation measurement is used (story points, function points, etc). Some of the most reliable up-front estimates are based on such past performance data. That the projects differ, does not prohibit extrapolation. As a project gets underway, you get the best possible indicator, namely past performance for the specific project. If you do regular re-estimation, progress monitoring and risk management (and you should, if you are a professional PM), you might not know if you are 52 or 53% done, but you will definitely know if you are ~80% done or ~50% done. If you want sources, read McConnell's "Software estimation" and references, or if you are in a hurry, take the bite-sized blog post about "Yesterdays weather" from Fowler: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/YesterdaysWeather.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/YesterdaysWeather.html which is based on the same experience and literature.
      - peterkelly 14y ago
        It really depends very much on the project or organisation. If you're doing anything that involves risk, creativity, innovation, or research, it's almost impossible to predict. And even projects which contain little or none of these aspects often seem to go way beyond their initial budgets.
        MortenK 14y ago
        Agreed. R&D is notoriously hard to estimate and high-risk projects require tight risk management to allow proper progress monitoring. And yes it also depend on the organization as most organizations don't even keep records of initial vs actual estimates, making estimation based on historical data hard to impossible. As for projects going over initial budgets, that's a different problem from progress monitoring, though they often go hand in hand.

Or you could apply proper, professional project management methods to make sure the last 20% doesn't take half the time of the entire project.

by MortenK 14y ago

Or you could apply proper, professional project management methods to make sure the last 20% doesn't take half the time of the entire project.

ofacup 14y ago

just because your spreadsheet says it will take this long, doesn't mean reality will take a lot longer

MortenK 14y ago
True at project start, but the further you progress the more realistic the estimates will be. Half-way through, you can do much, much better than being caught with a 20% effort turning into 50% effort situation. However, if you start by doing an off the cuff estimate and expect that to hold throughout the project, well yes, then reality will be very different. That's the situation where you end up with a 20% or even 10% estimated effort ballooning into a 50% or more effort. But as the author suggests, just getting into it and working hard from the beginning won't make a difference. That will just ensure a project-long crunch which will be highly detrimental to team performance.

coldtea 14y ago

Yes, because those methods have worked wonders so far in IT projects, including multi-hundred million dollar ones...

MortenK 14y ago
If you consistently have the "last 20% takes 50% of the project" situation, then your scheduling is based on wishful thinking rather than past performance. No method guarantees project success, as can be seen from plenty of failed high-profile projects. But basic project management and estimation methods applied not only at project start, will definitely get you out of the very basic problem of "90% complete, forever".
- coldtea 14y ago
  >If you consistently have the "last 20% takes 50% of the project" situation, then your scheduling is based on wishful thinking rather than past performance. There is no "past performance" for most projects, because they are different enough to prohibit extrapolations. The above holds for large IT projects and software construction of course. For a small shop making indie games or for a web shop churning websites what you say is perfectly possible.
  - MortenK 14y ago
    Past performance before a project start is the average of an organizations output in whatever estimation measurement is used (story points, function points, etc). Some of the most reliable up-front estimates are based on such past performance data. That the projects differ, does not prohibit extrapolation. As a project gets underway, you get the best possible indicator, namely past performance for the specific project. If you do regular re-estimation, progress monitoring and risk management (and you should, if you are a professional PM), you might not know if you are 52 or 53% done, but you will definitely know if you are ~80% done or ~50% done. If you want sources, read McConnell's "Software estimation" and references, or if you are in a hurry, take the bite-sized blog post about "Yesterdays weather" from Fowler: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/YesterdaysWeather.html http://martinfowler.com/bliki/YesterdaysWeather.html which is based on the same experience and literature.
    - peterkelly 14y ago
      It really depends very much on the project or organisation. If you're doing anything that involves risk, creativity, innovation, or research, it's almost impossible to predict. And even projects which contain little or none of these aspects often seem to go way beyond their initial budgets.
      - MortenK 14y ago
        Agreed. R&D is notoriously hard to estimate and high-risk projects require tight risk management to allow proper progress monitoring. And yes it also depend on the organization as most organizations don't even keep records of initial vs actual estimates, making estimation based on historical data hard to impossible. As for projects going over initial budgets, that's a different problem from progress monitoring, though they often go hand in hand.