It always takes longer than you think. I always thought it was only my cognitive bias that resulted in schedule activity underestimation. Turns out It’s an actual thing.
Hofstadter’s law “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
According to this law, you will always underestimate how long something will take and, even when you attempt compensate for it, you will still underestimate. The more complex the project you are planning the more applicable this is. The 2X+15 Rule (double your first time estimate for any task, and then add 15 minutes) might work for the Dashboard I was asked to develop for next weeks board meeting. Engineering and Software development I understand the softness of the scope. However on Mega Projects we have to be accurate, this is what we do.
So what do we do about it?
-Utilize historical information from previous, similar projects. Ask PMs for copies of old schedules to get actual durations. Maybe you got lucky and your company is good about archiving the data.
-Estimates from the people who will complete the tasks. I’m not the expert but I am good at identifying who is.
-Leverage the expert judgment of people who have managed similar projects. Ask the PM or Project Controls team what they think about your duration assumptions. The gentleman with the grey beard, oh he knows how long it will take for that concrete to cure, because he has done it dozens of not hundreds of times before.
-Work your network. This is a small industry and I am personally committed to adding value. Leverage your network and you will be surprised by the number of people willing to help, we want you to succeed.
Cheers! And let me know what I can help you with.
