FastEDUCATION™ Seminar
Seminar: Estimating Work Effort
Duration: 3 hours
Expected
Audience: Targeted for project
leaders and perhaps some team members, this session presents methods, tools,
and approaches to estimating work (tasks and activities).
Pre-Requisites: At a minimum, attendees should have completed:
- PM Fundamentals
- Initiation & Planning
- WBS and Schedule Development
Objectives:
- Explore some of the common estimation-related problems in projects
today
- Examine some effective requirements gathering techniques
- Understand several methods to estimate work effort more accurately
- Demonstrate the use of some estimation tools
- See how to integrate work estimates into an MS Project schedule
- Know how to use buffers for contingency planning
- Know how to update the initial risk assessment based on estimation
loading
Format: Presentation / discussion in groups of 10-20.
Outline:
- Introduction
- Outline review
- Materials Tour
- Participant's experiences with estimation
- Project Planning Review
- Life cycle review
- WBS & Schedule Development review
- Support Tools Review
- MS Project
- Project register
- Excel
- Estimation Background
- Estimation Overview
- Reviewing the Initial Key Phase WBS and Initial
Schedule
- Get the Requirements Right
- Requirements gathering techniques
- Requirements Grid
- Characteristics of good requirements
- Validation
- Estimating Work
- Typical estimation problems
- Methods of approach
- Accuracy
- Risk Considerations
- Risk Adjustments
- Contingency Buffers
- Summary & Wrap-up
Seminar Materials:
- Presentation matter
- Copy of slides (notes view) in notebook
- Links to detail forms and help sites
Seminar Slides:
Once you have attended the seminar, the
links below will allow you access the seminar slides and handouts in pdf format, and additional related materials,
- Seminar notebook
- A Requirements Fable - The Story of the Vasa
(.pdf)
