Cindy Vandersleen's Page

In my last article on estimation, I talked about creating consistent estimates by establishing a scale, where for every type of work you do, and for a range of complexity levels (i.e. low – medium – high), you record pre-set values that can be plugged in to your estimates. What I was in fact describing was a complexity model. In this article I will describe how as a team you can build your own complex

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In my last article, “Is it bigger than a breadbox”, I talked about the three points in a project when estimates are usually delivered. The topic of that article was the rough order of magnitude (or ROM) estimates generally given during the project selection process or at project initiation. Those estimates can have +- 50% margin of error in them due to lack of information. Once the project is approved, the team begins working on scope definition artifacts, developing first a high level, then a d… Continue

One of the most perplexing dilemmas of any project portfolio process, a catch 22 really, is how to estimate the size of the potential candidates being submitted before the selection board. The catch 22 is that the selection committee wants an estimate of how much the project will cost before they can make a decision on whether to approve of it. However, no work has been done on the project yet to define the scope or requirements to know what work would be necessary. In fact the team that could e… Continue

Some people think of those 3 letters and hold up the sign of the cross as if to ward off vampires. For some reason this seems to be one of those areas of project management work that meets with more resistance than most from beginning practitioners. I’m often asked “Do we really need to go to all the trouble of creating one of those?” There seems to be confusion about what a WBS is and why anyone would need one, and generally speaking a lot of fear about the effort involved to prepare one.

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