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Let's take a closer look
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at how activity breakdown works in practice.
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Here's an implementation plan
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broken into a set of activities
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that will get it done.
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The first principle is that the person that will create
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the deliverable when the project is underway
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must be the same person that estimates it in planning
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to ensure accuracy in planning
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and commitment during execution.
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This principle falls down all the time
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with predictable negative results.
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If the person estimating a deliverable
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isn't going to be the person doing it later,
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no matter how professional they are,
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they just aren't going to put
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the same effort into estimation.
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And if the person who produces a deliverable
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during execution didn't develop the estimate,
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they just aren't going to feel
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the same responsibility to meet it.
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Let's say you have ensured that.
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Then, before breaking down the deliverable,
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the owner needs to first decide
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the composition of their team and level of expertise,
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since the duration cannot be factored linearly
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by changing the number of people later.
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Here, the deliverable owner decided
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they would estimate based on having a senior resource,
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a junior resource, and a QA person in support.
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Then simply take the time to think the deliverable through
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and break down the activities required to produce it.
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It's a standard to always estimate the time in hours,
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not days, since sometimes there will be one hour activities.
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And include any required material and services.
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When you do the breakdown,
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look for some common estimating patterns.
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For example, often you don't just start moving at full speed
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but rather, there is some kind of preparation work upfront,
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to kind of ease into the effort.
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And even within the deliverable,
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at the activity level managed by the owner,
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there's often more than one version,
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since almost nothing can be done properly in one pass.
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And third, also within the deliverable,
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at the activity level,
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look for the opportunity to apply some quality assurance
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by defining at least one internal peer review
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and some kind of final review before it's handed over.
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Not all deliverables have these patterns but many do.
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It's well worth looking to see if they apply.
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Here's a story about the importance of the deliverable owner
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during execution being the person to provide the estimate.
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The first time I ever defined a deliverable,
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as a junior member of a project team,
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I remember my boss said to me,
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"That's great, now I need you
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to provide an estimate for it."
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My reaction was shock and dismay.
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I told him I had no experience with estimating
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and he should probably find someone else to do it,
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especially since it was going into a bid
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for a fixed price contract where we could lose money.
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And I'll never forget what he said.
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He said, "I hear you, but when I look around this building
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for the best person to estimate your work,
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the best person I see is you."
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And then I understood, it didn't matter how junior I was,
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it was my work.
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No one else really understood it
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and no one else was going to come up
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with an estimate anywhere close.
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So my boss gave me some mentoring,
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basically the information on this page,
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and then I broke down the work
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into the activities required to get there,
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estimated them individually, rolled them up,
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and at the end of the exercise had an estimate
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that ended up being fairly close.
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So, if your team members express
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discomfort with estimating, tell them the same thing.
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They are the best people to provide the estimate
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for their own work.
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Give them the same mentoring as described in this page
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and tell them they can be wrong later
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as long as they have something behind their estimate
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called a Basis of Estimate or BOE.
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And when you don't have hard historical data,
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an activity breakdown is the best BOE
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we know how to provide.
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There is a second step in the activity breakdown
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that significantly helps with accuracy,
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you fine-tune the estimate,
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since the first estimate is usually too large
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because you typically estimated each activity a little high
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in case you are missing something.
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So you take a look at the total and do a gut check
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based on past experience,
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if it seems too large, you cut back the estimate a bit,
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or less often if it seems too small,
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you increase it a bit or look for activities
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you might have missed.
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Here, you can see that the deliverable owner reduced
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some of the activities between four and 20 hours.
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For a total reduction of 46 hours for the senior resource,
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and 24 hours for the junior resource.
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Then do another gut check,
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and if necessary, fine-tune it again.
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This critically important fine-tuning step
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about doubles the accuracy.
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That is if it was 20% off after the first estimate,
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it is probably only about 10% off
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after this fine-tuning adjustment.
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Now, you've thought through the activities,
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estimated them individually, rolled them up,
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and fine-tuned as needed,
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you have a great basis of estimate for the deliverable.
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