:AACE CERTIFICATION 2009-2010:

The estimating process

I don’t have much opportunity to apply what I am learning now in AACE in my daily tasks but to some extend learning AACE brings me an intensive point of view in project support tasks that I'm handling daily. Reading through my assignment this week with chapter 21 in Humphrey’s I am really interested in this chapter which helps me understand more on what is the key for being a successful project manager from the planning phase.

Here are some focused points for my review that cited from Humphrey’s, chapter 21, the estimating process.

Every project starts with estimating so the more accurate and detailed of the estimation is the more successful the project manager is. The below cited points (in italics) are the most important steps that every project manager should focus on when doing with the estimation to avoid the impact of poor estimating to the project.

1. A set of guidelines need to be in place. The guidelines provide the framework for the estimation process.
In many projects, the guideline are available, especially in a big company where they already have their developed standard work process. To start a project, any estimation has to comply with the standard process. And there’s also a supporting team to help project managers to fulfil and follow the standard process. Project manager should always refer to the set framework to do the estimation.
2. A structure must be established. This should be the project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). In many cases, the WBS used for actual cost collection
The WBS should be the basis to collect actual cost for all activity in the project. A WBS and templates serve cost esimating for the following reasons

+ To provide consistency betwen estimates and from there will helps project manager to compare the estimating with the actual collection later on.

In order to establish a successful cost estimation and control, a well-developed structure of WBS is a crucial factor.

The WBS dictionary will be the basis for cost estimate.
4. Standard estimate format/template should be defined

All forms/templates should be consistent through the automatic summarization capability. The format should maintain through out the history of the project. This will be a tracker for tracing the changes in the estimates.

The estimate process plays an important role in making or breaking a project success. However, it only works when the above listed factors are in place.

In my real life world, the estimation process is well organized and aplied for all projects with set of procedures and standard provided by the organization. However, to ensure a proper cost estimation besides the estimate process as a basis for initiating the cost estimation, there should be further development and follow-up which we may study more in chapter 22, 23 in the Humphrey's, Estimate Development.