Task Confidence

[clin341]

Hi all,

My organization is new to estimating time. We'd like to track how confident
(25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) each task estimate is.

Is there a field to indicate how confident the resource is of completing the
task on time? Or do I need to create a custom field?

Thanks,
CLin

 

[John]

Hi all,

My organization is new to estimating time. We'd like to track how confident
(25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) each task estimate is.

Is there a field to indicate how confident the resource is of completing the
task on time? Or do I need to create a custom field?

Thanks,
CLin

Clin,
No there is not a built-in field for that type of subjective data. I'm
afraid you will need to designate a spare field.

For your reference, classic schedule risk analysis does offer insight to
the probably success of a plan. That analysis uses pessimistic, normal,
and optimistic measures for each task. The analysis normally is used in
a Monte Carlo type simulation to arrive at success probability.

John
Project MVP

 

[Steve House [Project MVP]]

Just curious ... if you say a task is estimated to take 5 days with a 75%
confidence level without including historical information on variances, what
precisely does that mean in concrete numbers and how are those numbers
derived? When I say the last 25 times we had to wax 100 widgets it took us
a mean duration of 17.5 days with a standard deviation of 1.25 days, I can
say that the next time we do it there's a 60-something % chance it will take
between 16.25 and 18.75 days and a 92% chance it will take between 15 and 20
days but just saying I'm 75% confident it will take 17 days doesn't really
tell me anything about how long it's likely to actually pan out or how risky
that estimate really is.

 

[Mike Glen]

Hi CLin,

Welcome to this Microsoft Project newsgroup

You might alsp like to have a look at my series on Microsoft Project in the
TechTrax ezine, particularly my latest #29 on PERT, at this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2xbhc or this:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMFrame.asp?CMD=ArticleSearch&AUTH=23
(Perhaps you'd care to rate the article before leaving the site,
Thanks.)

FAQs, companion products and other useful Project information can be seen at
this web address: <http://www.mvps.org/project/>

Hope this helps - please let us know how you get on

Mike Glen
MS Project MVP