Hello, could you please share an experience, or maybe best practices for estimating PM hours in projects, comparing to other team efforts?
Mainly I'm curious about IT projects (infrastructure), but other experience is also quite interesting. And what is approximate budget for these projects? Can't find any relevant investigation, but for years of my experience we need to argue with customers about PM hours (facepalm). Saving Changes...
Thanks a lot for comments, colleagues.
I absolutely agree that PM efforts directly depend on project complexity, management complexity, level of delegation, frequency of communications and many other relevant aspects. Maybe a decomposition of PM tasks can really be an answer here.
The problem in my case is that we usually don't hide PM efforts behind the total project cost, so customers see high-level decomposition for the price. And they are quite often unhappy with this "30% for PM" estimation, because there are plenty of sources saying "rule of thumb - 10-15%", and customer is aware about it. So the main conclusion they can get is that projects are overpriced, this is a problem for us.
But nobody says what is size of budget (at least approximate) for projects where we should apply the rule of thumb 10-15% so it could work, because for small projects it doesn't seem to. And nobody says which project can be considered as a small.
That's why I'm asking for any examples based on experience of other PMs. Anything, at least in approximate hours, will be great for understanding if it is more a process\tools problem, or is it an expectations problem.
Thanks a lot for input Sergio!
Could you maybe give an example of total efforts\duration\team size to get a better understanding of average project, please?
As I mentioned in my example, for the project with 400 hours for implementation during 4 months with 15% RoT we could have only 60 PM hours in total, less than 4 hours a week. And sometimes we have even smaller projects, unfortunately. Is it a realistic estimation as per your experience?
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Nov 29, 2021 10:01 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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If you say to me, in the first time then a raw estimation, that you will give me a project of 400 hours duration I will say you that it will takes to me, as project manager, between 60-80 hours of project management work. After that, continue with a raw estimate, this time has to be distributed between project phases depending on the project life cycle. Just to give you an example, for project of 960 hours duration and lot of people involved we have 1 hour meeting per week for monitoring and control, while I know other places where project managers spend more time on it. But, after more than 30 years working with this items, I saw that the rule that worked for me is to estimate 15%-20% of total project time for project management activities.
It depends on project size, type, complexity as well as organization's status, structure, management style, etc.
Generally speaking, I think 5 to 25 percent on average!
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1 reply by Alexey Trishin
Nov 29, 2021 9:01 AM
Alexey Trishin
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Hello Abolfazl, thanks for comment!
Relying on your practical experience, could you, please, describe the project size\duration\team with example when 5% is enough and when 25% is required, please?
It depends on project size, type, complexity as well as organization's status, structure, management style, etc.
Generally speaking, I think 5 to 25 percent on average!
Hello Abolfazl, thanks for comment!
Relying on your practical experience, could you, please, describe the project size\duration\team with example when 5% is enough and when 25% is required, please? Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Nov 28, 2021 7:50 AM
Replying to Thomas Walenta
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True, Alexey, there is a difference between large and small projects.
I had projects with small teams of 3-4, up to 7, when most of the PM tasks are done by this team as part of their SME work. Those PM tasks tend to be more outward focused (reports, customer meetings) and not so much formal, sometimes plans are rudimentary, as everybody on small teams already knows what is going on by talking to each other every day.
For these projects, I have seen less than 15%.
If you put 30% efforts in project management tasks, I would assume this might include some contingency (which should be separate). For my experience it is way to high, it could mean for a team of 3-4 you have one exclusively acting as a PM.
Thomas
Alexey
if I saw lots of those small projects with as you say 400 hours or 50 days each, I also saw that they do not have fulltime staff and several of them serve the same customer. In this case, we tried to bundle them and either established an umbrella project, a program or even a portfolio ( for example 20-30 projects to continuously adapting a HR system to legal and other changes).
In this case it can be an option to establish an agile team and let them work on features in a backlog. The required PM efforts are largely hidden by the agile framework.
Thomas Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Nov 29, 2021 7:51 AM
Replying to Alexey Trishin
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Thanks a lot for input Sergio!
Could you maybe give an example of total efforts\duration\team size to get a better understanding of average project, please?
As I mentioned in my example, for the project with 400 hours for implementation during 4 months with 15% RoT we could have only 60 PM hours in total, less than 4 hours a week. And sometimes we have even smaller projects, unfortunately. Is it a realistic estimation as per your experience?
If you say to me, in the first time then a raw estimation, that you will give me a project of 400 hours duration I will say you that it will takes to me, as project manager, between 60-80 hours of project management work. After that, continue with a raw estimate, this time has to be distributed between project phases depending on the project life cycle. Just to give you an example, for project of 960 hours duration and lot of people involved we have 1 hour meeting per week for monitoring and control, while I know other places where project managers spend more time on it. But, after more than 30 years working with this items, I saw that the rule that worked for me is to estimate 15%-20% of total project time for project management activities. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
Project meetings tend to consume a lot of expensive time and are a major component of project management time(and costs). Question: do you see only the project manager charging this time to the project management account or does all in attendance have access to this account?
I typically prefer to see the SMEs charge meeting time to their technical accounts with only the PM on the project management ticket.
Opinions?
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1 reply by Keith Novak
Nov 29, 2021 12:51 PM
Keith Novak
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I have seen charging for PM work separated out, but it was a huge waste of effort. Creating separate accounts adds a lot of confusion and people frequently do not charge their time accurately, or you spend a lot of time just trying to get the charging right. The Finance department hates it.
I've also seen it done with EVM where everyone's PM CPI and SPI are magically 1.000000 regardless of whether they just spent the last 20 minutes in a project review explaining their many issues and late deliverables. To save time, people just create a spreadsheet to game the metrics.
It turns into a lot more admin effort for worthless data. I have seen it required on government projects where they spend a premium to try and reduce risk exposure. My rule of thumb is that adds 20% to the total costs with no benefit other than meeting a customer requirement of negligible value.
Thanks a lot for comments, colleagues.
I absolutely agree that PM efforts directly depend on project complexity, management complexity, level of delegation, frequency of communications and many other relevant aspects. Maybe a decomposition of PM tasks can really be an answer here.
The problem in my case is that we usually don't hide PM efforts behind the total project cost, so customers see high-level decomposition for the price. And they are quite often unhappy with this "30% for PM" estimation, because there are plenty of sources saying "rule of thumb - 10-15%", and customer is aware about it. So the main conclusion they can get is that projects are overpriced, this is a problem for us.
But nobody says what is size of budget (at least approximate) for projects where we should apply the rule of thumb 10-15% so it could work, because for small projects it doesn't seem to. And nobody says which project can be considered as a small.
That's why I'm asking for any examples based on experience of other PMs. Anything, at least in approximate hours, will be great for understanding if it is more a process\tools problem, or is it an expectations problem.
A couple of additional thoughts based on your problem:
Your estimate should be based on your ability to measure the work performed. Project management activity is carried out across the org chart. The project management role itself is a discrete assignment.
As a PM, my charging is easily separated from the teams performing the technical work. So is time from other business administrative teams IF they charge their time directly to the projects.
The performing teams still do PM work, but if they just charge it to the project, and it's not broken out as PM vs. technical, then it is very difficult to measure, and prone to error if you try to separate it out. Groups might estimate their own level of effort based on number of releases, support of major reviews, and their internal PM, but it all gets charged to the same project account rather than asking people to split their hours by the type of activities performed during the day.
Doing the math, if a project has 100 hours for simplicity, 10% are from my PM team, 90% from the technical teams, and those teams spend 10% of their time doing PM related work then:
10hrs (PM) + 90hrs *10% (technical) = 19% PM activities total. Only the PM hours are measured as PM. The other hours aren't hidden. It is a compromise to avoiding much more PM time to try and slice the pie into many more pieces with arguable business value. Saving Changes...
Project meetings tend to consume a lot of expensive time and are a major component of project management time(and costs). Question: do you see only the project manager charging this time to the project management account or does all in attendance have access to this account?
I typically prefer to see the SMEs charge meeting time to their technical accounts with only the PM on the project management ticket.
Opinions?
I have seen charging for PM work separated out, but it was a huge waste of effort. Creating separate accounts adds a lot of confusion and people frequently do not charge their time accurately, or you spend a lot of time just trying to get the charging right. The Finance department hates it.
I've also seen it done with EVM where everyone's PM CPI and SPI are magically 1.000000 regardless of whether they just spent the last 20 minutes in a project review explaining their many issues and late deliverables. To save time, people just create a spreadsheet to game the metrics.
It turns into a lot more admin effort for worthless data. I have seen it required on government projects where they spend a premium to try and reduce risk exposure. My rule of thumb is that adds 20% to the total costs with no benefit other than meeting a customer requirement of negligible value. Saving Changes...
