Foolproof Estimating

2 Days

Now that your company has become more proficient at managing your projects the significance of your cost and schedule estimates becomes more and more valuable.  Without appropriate cost and schedule estimates it is not possible to plan a project.  Unless you have a good project plan you cannot hope to complete the project on schedule, for the agreed upon budget.

This course will not only give you sound estimating techniques that will give you the appropriate and economical level of accuracy, it will show you how to do it for less cost than you are currently spending on estimating.  Providing an appropriate estimate means having the highest accuracy needed for the least possible cost.   During the life of the project the accuracy of estimates needed changes and it is important to know how to improve the accuracy of estimates without improving them too much.                                                                                                   

It also tells you the exact steps you need to take to improve your estimate to the desired accuracy.   The course helps you gain real-world experience, through exercises and case studies, applying estimating strategies and techniques to actual projects.  Numerous exercises and case study activities will give you experience to allow you to use your knowledge.

Remove the uncertainty out of managing projects using the tools and techniques you will learn in this course

This course will earn participants 14 Professional Development units and 1.4 Continuing Education Units

Course Objectives

Participants will learn how to:

Class Outline

Why we need to have good estimates?

   What is Estimating?

    Pitfalls in estimating

    Definitions for estimating

    What do we need to estimate?

    Estimating and pricing

    Cost and Expenses

Estimates and the Work Breakdown Structure

Types of estimates

Accuracy of estimates, what’s appropriate

 Improving Estimates

Estimating without pain (or cost either)

Problems in estimating

How to improve estimates (without adding cost)

Standard deviation and multiple cost estimates

Probability distributions and estimates

Using probability to get the accuracy you want

Central limits and convergence

 Costs, Budgets and Estimates

Creating budgets from estimates

Indirect and Direct cost

Variable cost

Cost and Expense

“Make or Buy” decision

Effect of risk on budgets and estimates

Manage Contingency and Management Reserves

Schedule Estimates

Why is my project always late?

Promise dates made and lost

Program Evaluation and Review Technique

Analyzing the schedule

What you do and don’t need to worry about

Expected-value analysis

Monte Carlo Technique

Dealing with Risk and Contingencies

Estimating the cost of Risk

Why we need contingency in our schedules

What to do with contingency time

Buffered schedules