We Need It by October: What's Your Estimate?

Letting good estimates made by smart people be overwhelmed by the strong desires of powerful people is a cardinal sin of project management. Accurate estimates are the foundation of all the critical project decisions regarding staffing, functionality, delivery date, and budget. How do we properly estimate in a world where tradition declares that the deadline is set before the requirements are even known? Tim Lister offers practical advice on dealing with this thorny issue. He presents strategies and tactics for project estimating and describes his favorite estimating metric, the Estimating Quality Factor(EQF). By thinking of your project this way-goals are important and so are good estimates-you will be on the road to better quality and better projects. If you can learn to start the project and estimate continuously as events unfold, your goals and estimates will eventually converge.

• Ways to fight off unrealistic expectations with realistic estimates
• How to separate goals from estimates
• Estimating habits of highly successful project managers