Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I'm pretty sure, while estimating cost and durations, you all came accross activities where you had many unknowns and the information was not available to clarify these unknowns.
How did you address these situations ? Saving Changes...
You plan as much as can be possible and leave rest to be identified and clarified later, when you can amend it to your cost and schedule estimates. According to PMBOK Gide 5th Edition, this is what is called ROLLING WAVE PLANNING.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 09, 2016 12:02 AM
Rami Kaibni
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Suhail, I agree with you. This is one option.
How about this:
In cases where the estimator has too many unknowns and there is no information to identify those unknowns, the potential need for additional time and cost should be addressed through the risk management process where uncertainties are turned into identifiable opportunities and threats (Risks).
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 08, 2016 11:58 PM
Replying to Suhail Iqbal
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You plan as much as can be possible and leave rest to be identified and clarified later, when you can amend it to your cost and schedule estimates. According to PMBOK Gide 5th Edition, this is what is called ROLLING WAVE PLANNING.
Suhail, I agree with you. This is one option.
How about this:
In cases where the estimator has too many unknowns and there is no information to identify those unknowns, the potential need for additional time and cost should be addressed through the risk management process where uncertainties are turned into identifiable opportunities and threats (Risks).
What are your thoughts about this ? Saving Changes...
Very rightly brought up by Rami. I would relate it to rolling wave planning, in a way, every iteration of planning involves whole cycle of risk planning at that point in time. If we start from high level planning, progressive elaboration serves the same purpose at strategic level, and we do identify the high level risks at that stage as well. At tactical level, we have more in-depth identification and analysis of risks with every iteration of rolling wave planning.
Hope this serves to link our thoughts.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 10, 2016 3:26 PM
Rami Kaibni
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Thank you Suhail - That definitely links our thoughts tightly. I agree with Progressive Elaboration.
We could plan and execute only the known or those we could expect to be known during execution with some risks associated to them, and those risks can be manageable during execution. Those totally unknown and non-manageable items, we cannot plan at all and too much of unknown things to be performed by progressive elaboration, like Suhail highlighted Rolling wave is applicable.
If project with too many unknowns and if those are threats and non manageable, it's sign, better not to take up this project at all.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 10, 2016 3:31 PM
Rami Kaibni
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Agree with the first part Sandilyan - We are all on the same page in this regards.
However, if there are too many unknowns, you can never tell if they are threats or opportunities or threats that can be changed into opportunities. It rarely happens that a project is initiated and then terminated because there are too many unknowns (At least I never encountered this). It happens a lot that a WP has too many unknowns and then resolved with progressive elaboration. Moreover, for the Unknown-Unknowns, there is always a management reserve.
This is a good point that you raised and would like to know your opinion with regards to the above mentioned in addition to Suhail's.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 09, 2016 9:36 PM
Replying to Suhail Iqbal
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Very rightly brought up by Rami. I would relate it to rolling wave planning, in a way, every iteration of planning involves whole cycle of risk planning at that point in time. If we start from high level planning, progressive elaboration serves the same purpose at strategic level, and we do identify the high level risks at that stage as well. At tactical level, we have more in-depth identification and analysis of risks with every iteration of rolling wave planning.
Hope this serves to link our thoughts.
Thank you Suhail - That definitely links our thoughts tightly. I agree with Progressive Elaboration. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 10, 2016 11:01 AM
Replying to Sandilyan Ramadoss
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We could plan and execute only the known or those we could expect to be known during execution with some risks associated to them, and those risks can be manageable during execution. Those totally unknown and non-manageable items, we cannot plan at all and too much of unknown things to be performed by progressive elaboration, like Suhail highlighted Rolling wave is applicable.
If project with too many unknowns and if those are threats and non manageable, it's sign, better not to take up this project at all.
Agree with the first part Sandilyan - We are all on the same page in this regards.
However, if there are too many unknowns, you can never tell if they are threats or opportunities or threats that can be changed into opportunities. It rarely happens that a project is initiated and then terminated because there are too many unknowns (At least I never encountered this). It happens a lot that a WP has too many unknowns and then resolved with progressive elaboration. Moreover, for the Unknown-Unknowns, there is always a management reserve.
This is a good point that you raised and would like to know your opinion with regards to the above mentioned in addition to Suhail's.
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1 reply by Sandilyan Ramadoss
Jan 11, 2016 3:15 AM
Sandilyan Ramadoss
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Agree with your pt. of view Rami.
Reg. second part from my previous comment, in my opinion - If too many unknown-unknowns then even the management reserves we cannot set it, since this not part of your schedule baseline anyhow, we may eventually end up utilizing and exhausting / over project budget very fast. If the project has some known-unknowns and is manageable then it’s good to go-ahead with this project. We might have already done feasibility study by which we would already come to know about this position – is of having of too many unknown-unknowns in this project. If we come to know too-many unknowns at later stage of the project, then it’s no wonder that it’s a good chance for failure. Only having too many unknown-unknowns, it is not advisable to proceed on this project, and we’re taking a very high risk of executing this project, without knowing what we’re doing. Management reserve is only small portion, 10 – 15% of your total project budget typically, we will need to guestimate & try to evaluate max possible at least to see how much we could accommodate if too-many unknown-unknowns. Preliminary estimates (ROM) and feasibility check / study should really help you to go or no go into this project. Like others had mentioned, if we have already had the SMEs / expertise in this project, couple of unknowns could have been unearthed in the initial stage itself, being done this activity, taking into further stages with “too many unknown-unknowns” is a great risk towards, and we’re working towards the failure of the project and its resources, also we know it is going to overshoot your project budget for sure. The best is execute only if and when the project is manageable and we know what we’re doing and going to do in the project. It is as equivalent as having too many unknown-unknowns in the project is that we do not know what the project is all about. As simple as it is, better stay away, so that we can cut down the cost and resource time at least! ?
Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Rami,
If we have minimal information for the estimate, consider providing a rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate. ROMs are useful for budgeting purposes. It tells the client that they are facing 1 day or 10 days or 100 days. It is not unusual for a ROM to come with a + or - 50%. If you prefer, you can provide the range: from x - 50% to x + 50%. Make sure to document all your assumptions.
When you get additional information, you can then provide a level of effort (LOE) estimate. At this point, you should have fewer assumptions and a more precise estimate, usually around + or - 25%.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 10, 2016 6:48 PM
Rami Kaibni
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Stephane,
Right On - I agree with this. Also, when you have too many unknowns risk and contingency will be higher, with time as soon as there are less assumptions, the risks also might be reduced.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 10, 2016 6:46 PM
Replying to Stéphane Parent
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Rami,
If we have minimal information for the estimate, consider providing a rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate. ROMs are useful for budgeting purposes. It tells the client that they are facing 1 day or 10 days or 100 days. It is not unusual for a ROM to come with a + or - 50%. If you prefer, you can provide the range: from x - 50% to x + 50%. Make sure to document all your assumptions.
When you get additional information, you can then provide a level of effort (LOE) estimate. At this point, you should have fewer assumptions and a more precise estimate, usually around + or - 25%.
Stephane,
Right On - I agree with this. Also, when you have too many unknowns risk and contingency will be higher, with time as soon as there are less assumptions, the risks also might be reduced. Saving Changes...
Bernard GorePortfolio, Programme & Project Professional| NZ PoliceWellington, New Zealand
There are all sorts of established professional methods for this, for example Delphi, which is effectively a very structured approach to the general concept that applies in such situations which is tapping into the "wisdom of crowds".
In the case of estimating/forecasting we are not talking about generic public crowds, but crowds of experts with knowledge and/or experience of at least the general area. none may be able to provide a good estimate ion their own, but with a sufficient group they can between them provide both a reasonable average estimate and from their spread of individual estimates a level of confidence/variance to use to form tolerances.
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1 reply by Rami Kaibni
Jan 10, 2016 10:52 PM
Rami Kaibni
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You can't use Delphi Technique when you have unknowns. Delphi technique is used when you have too many opinions and you want unanimity (Best and One Opinion).
You can't provide good estimate if you have too many unknowns even if you have experts. The only way to do that is Roll Waving, Risk Assessment and Progressive Elaboration.
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Jan 10, 2016 10:05 PM
Replying to Bernard Gore
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There are all sorts of established professional methods for this, for example Delphi, which is effectively a very structured approach to the general concept that applies in such situations which is tapping into the "wisdom of crowds".
In the case of estimating/forecasting we are not talking about generic public crowds, but crowds of experts with knowledge and/or experience of at least the general area. none may be able to provide a good estimate ion their own, but with a sufficient group they can between them provide both a reasonable average estimate and from their spread of individual estimates a level of confidence/variance to use to form tolerances.
You can't use Delphi Technique when you have unknowns. Delphi technique is used when you have too many opinions and you want unanimity (Best and One Opinion).
You can't provide good estimate if you have too many unknowns even if you have experts. The only way to do that is Roll Waving, Risk Assessment and Progressive Elaboration.
This is my humble opinion.
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1 reply by Suhail Iqbal
Jan 11, 2016 4:37 AM
Suhail Iqbal
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Very pertinent argument by Rami on Bernard Gore's comment about use of Delphi technique. You can only use Delphi technique in trying to identify as many risks as possible but that is not a guarantee that no risk will be left to be found. There still will be unknowns, and providing estimates for something which is unknown is UNKNOWN to me.
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