{"id":1680,"date":"2022-03-02T21:02:35","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T14:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/?p=1680"},"modified":"2022-03-02T21:02:35","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T14:02:35","slug":"how-to-choose-the-project-best-estimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/how-to-choose-the-project-best-estimate\/","title":{"rendered":"How to choose the Project best Estimate ?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_83 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/how-to-choose-the-project-best-estimate\/#How_to_choose_the_Project_best_Estimate\" >How to choose the Project best Estimate?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/how-to-choose-the-project-best-estimate\/#A_Bell_Curve_Approach\" >A Bell Curve Approach<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_to_choose_the_Project_best_Estimate\"><\/span>How to choose the Project best Estimate?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Project estimates are much like how you get to work in the morning. It&#8217;s essential to pick an estimate that gives you a good chance of getting where you need to go when you need to get there. On some days, getting to work is easy.<\/p>\n<p>If it&#8217;s going to take 30 minutes, it might. Most of the time, let&#8217;s say it takes 45 minutes to get ready. An accident could turn it into an hour. Your commute time should be long enough to get to work on time.<\/p>\n<p>The same thing works for your project estimates, too. You may decide when to leave for work on your own. We&#8217;re going to look at a similar but more rigorous way to pick estimate values for your project. It would look like a Bell Curve if you graphed the probability of your commute times.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_Bell_Curve_Approach\"><\/span>A Bell Curve Approach<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>At the top, your average drive time would be the top. A Bell Curve is also known as a normal distribution because it is a standard curve. When you give your customer an estimate, there are things about it that help you choose a safe one.<\/p>\n<p>In the beginning, 50 percent of the possible values on a Bell Curve are less than the average, and 50 percent are more than the average. You have a 50-50 chance of getting results that are the same or less than your estimate if you use the average value instead of your estimate.<\/p>\n<p>Then think about it. There is a good chance that you will both fail and be successful if you give your customer an average price. I wouldn&#8217;t risk my life with those odds. On the other hand, the worst-case estimate gives you the best chance of success, so don&#8217;t be afraid to use it. Because that number is so high, your customer might not want to finish the project.<\/p>\n<p>Customers are likely to ask, &#8220;What&#8217;s the best thing that could happen?&#8221; &#8220;What if everything works out?&#8221; Avoid this trap. If you give the customer your best-case estimate, they might not be very happy with it. Six months? And you talk about how to finish the project in six months. What they&#8217;ll hear: The next six months are going to be filled with blah blah blah. You&#8217;ve also set your project up to fail. We&#8217;ve removed the best, worst, and most likely values from the list.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re probably wondering what number you should use when you make a rough guess. There is a value between what is average and what is worst. Bell Curve: Let&#8217;s go back to it and choose the middle point between average and worst-case. Without going into the math, that gives you an 85% chance of your results being less than or equal to that number.<\/p>\n<p>That has a good chance of working out, and the value is easy to figure out, too. Plus, you can change your value to make it less likely that you&#8217;ll miss the deadline. As if you were going to a job interview, you would leave a little early to go.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re trying to win a project, you might choose a value that isn&#8217;t as high. Even though there is a greater chance of failing. The most important thing to do is select the estimate that has a good chance of working. To practice, use the information in the exercise files to figure out how long it will take you to give the hospital&#8217;s COO a time frame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to choose the Project best Estimate? Project estimates are much like how you get&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","meta_keywords":"","rank_math_focus_keyword":"Project best Estimate"},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"newstopic":[],"class_list":["post-1680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practical-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1680"},{"taxonomy":"newstopic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevensondang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newstopic?post=1680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}