Need help estimating?

by Elizabeth on 26/04/2007

Who doesn’t? I’m not wild about estimating myself, especially if my project Sponsor has decided that contingency is a just a fancy way of saying ‘I have no idea.’ Which is largely true. So I was glad to come across this: Joseph Phillips has shared his estimating expertise with the world, in the form of a readable article about project estimating. Enjoy.

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http://www.zoomstart.com Shane

That was a good article. Estimating is always a dice roll.

The only way to really pin down an estimate is to get hard numbers from your suppliers and then contract in penalties to keep them on schedule …

And that’s really hard to do unless you can generate a lot of competition between suppliers who really want your business. Which usually means you’re putting in a big order for the size of the companies that are supplying you.
http://www.elizabeth-harrin.co.uk Elizabeth

The risk when you generate competition between suppliers who really want your business is that they bid too low in an effort to get the job. That’s when you need those contract penalties, otherwise you find yourself stuck with escalating costs. The Scottish Parliament building is a great example of that…