That’s Incredible!

That’s Incredible….

….is not always a compliment.

You don’t need a Brian Williams-like meltdown to lose credibility. The biggest credibility risk for project managers and staff is how they handle time estimates for task duration.

True, they’re fighting human nature: the planning fallacy – that people are naturally optimistic in estimating their own task duration.

One solution is to add staff when the project is late. This happens so often (and is so ineffective) that it generated Brooks Law, summed up in the adage, “Nine women can’t make a baby in one month.”

Our solution is to temper that optimism by introducing deadlines sooner. As important, however, is how we train project managers to gather duration estimates. The worst thing a project manager can say to an activity manager is “Why should it take so long?” PSI teaches managers that it is more important to secure the activity manager’s commitment to the duration estimate than the estimate itself. The commitment is more important.

Otherwise, team members will over-inflate their time estimates anticipating the pushback. We call it the “escalating estimate padding and slashing game.” Trust is the first casualty.

My book describes multiple processes for determining a reasonable time estimate, but there are some quick, additional tips:

• Don’t challenge time estimates that are too long. Challenge the ones that are too short.
• Ask how many working days (not hours) would get the activity done.
• Reassure staff not to worry about the inaccuracy of the time estimates, but to worry about the activities that haven’t been identified yet.

Above all, remember that without the team’s full commitment on the time estimate, the project schedule is simply incredible. And not in a good way.