Reflection on “Voices Viewpoints: Heaven or Hell: The 7 Deadly Sins of Project Estimating by Smallow

The article “Heaven or Hell: The 7 Deadly Sins of Project Estimating” to talked about estimation in project management. It discussed some of the bad practices that lead to a failing estimate. Those practices can be found in many projects, and so the project manager should be aware of it, and when he/she sees one, corrective actions must be taken. The seven bad practices (or Sins) mentioned in the article were Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride, and Lust.

The article discussed how greed and fear can be related, and how teams become willing to share information, when they realize they will not be penalized for what is perceived as project failures. The article also discussed the cumulative buffers that are usually added in the estimation process, where too many safety factors can lead to exaggerated and misleading numbers that does not reflect a healthy estimation process.

Another topic that was discussed is that many team members tend to use the lazy estimates rather than building realistic models and that also a very common bad practice that is found in many projects. The truth is the construction of accurate models requires patient and continuous improvement, and there is no smart way to avoid that; some project managers benefit from other practices done in other companies to do so.

Some of the lesson learned from this article are, during the project, when it becomes clear to the project team that they cannot meet a goal, project manager should push the team member to go back on track; however, the quality should not be compromised, and if the project manager realize that the target cannot be meet, the project manager should communicate fast and keep the sponsors and top management in the picture, not to lower their expectation, but to keep it realistic.

In 2010, I worked at a quantity surveying office, and we used to prepare steel material-take-off list for construction projects. In that period, the work load used to fluctuate greatly, and when the work was on its peak, the estimation manager used to push us to meet the deadlines of the work that he had in mind, and without having more staff to assign to the projects, and with no overtime hours allowed, we used to compromise accuracy, and that used to save a lot of time; when one constrain of the projects has to be compressed, other constrains needs to be extends, and in that situation, the variation of the quality increased. We used to deliver material take off with 80% accuracy. When the work load becomes low, we used to work more to understand the accuracy level that we can committee to, so when we say, this is 80% accurate, we actually got the 80% right; it was not the best practice to stick to, but with the limitation of resources that we used to have, I believe this was one of the best solutions.