Estimation & Planning in Agile Project Management

Project estimation is the first step towards making a robust project management plan. Project managers spend a lot of time and effort in carving out estimates and more often than not, these estimates just blow up as they hit the execution floors. So how is planning and estimation different in agile project management?

Before diving into the details let us understand the common estimation approaches that are prevalent across organizations. All project management teams end up with estimations that aren’t in sync with the ground realities of project execution.

Why is it so?

·      Take a look at your last 3-5 projects and find out who did the estimation?

·      Usually, it is an architect, a technical project manager or a SME, who will in fact will not be “executing” or working on these estimated deliverables.

·      And then there is the “customer demanded deadline” which has no consideration of the actual requirements, project scope, resource management and or project schedule management.

·      At times, even our customer facing teams are at fault where they over promise to get that crucial deal!

·      Requirements aren’t finalized but an end date is!

·      Clients and stakeholders keep changing the project scope frequently.

·      Estimation was done with specific expert levels in mind and now you have to work with less experienced resources

All of these and many more such factors play a role in skewing your estimation and execution at the same time

Read the full article at Orangescrum Blog