Accurate planning is important in project management.
Estimating costs and allocating resources poorly can cost a project manager the
project, or even their job.
In this blog, I will look at a couple of websites that I think
will be useful in estimating the costs, effort, and/or activity durations
associated with ID projects. The first contains several articles and tools and
is located at http://www.mindtools.com. One
article called “Estimating time accurately” is located at http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_01.htm.
This article discusses several steps for making more accurate time estimates
and some methods in calculating them. It includes some things we have learned
about in our class such as Work Breakdown Structures, top-down and bottom-up
estimating, and Gantt charts. These tools, and others, “enable project managers
to summarize and organize the various events, activities, and span times of
project tasks” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, & Sutton, 2008).
A second site is http://www.projectmanagementguru.com/estimating.html.
This site has articles and tools that can be used in the different project
management phases. Keeping a project on schedule and on budget takes much
planning. And many times projects overrun either or both of these.
One other site that I came across was http://www.pmhut.com/common-tools-for-cost-estimating-in-project-management.
This site also has several articles that can assist with project management by
explaining different methods and tools that can be used.
Sometimes project management can feel like these phases:
1.
Wild enthusiasm
2.
Disillusionment
3.
Confusion
4.
Panic
5.
Search for the guilty
6.
Punishment of the innocent
7.
Promotion of non-participants ( PM Hut,2013)
Adams, S. (2009). Dilbert by Scott Adams. Retrieved from http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Budget%20Estimate
Mind Tools. (2013). Estimating time accurately. Retrieved
from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_01.htm
PM Hut. (2008). Common tools for cost estimating in project
management. Retrieved from http://www.pmhut.com/common-tools-for-cost-estimating-in-project-management
PM Hut. (2013). Project management funnies—The final
chapter. Retrieved from http://www.pmhut.com/project-management-funnies-the-final-chapter
Portny, S. E.,
Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer,
B.E. (2008). Project management:
Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc.
Sheen, R. (2012). Project management estimating tools and
techniques. Retrieved from http://search.dilbert.com/comic/Budget%20Estimate
Nancy,
ReplyDeleteAll three sites that you found are beneficial tools for PMs and IDs to estimate costs and allocate resources in projects. The first article makes the important point of why time has to be estimated accurately, and provides quality steps on estimating time accurately. For the second link, it was interesting to read about the three types of activities, along with various types of estimating approaches and analyses. The third source indeed has a lot of quality links and articles that can help project managers.