project-management-rope-estimate

When teams don't need strong estimates, then Kanban works well. When teams do need strong estimates, then the best way I know is doing a project management ROPE estimate, which uses multiple perspectives to improve the planning. https://github.com/SixArm/project-management-rope-estimate R = Realistic estimate. This is based on work being typical, reasonable, plausible, and usual. O = Optimistic estimate. This is based on work turning out to be notably easy, or fast, or lucky. P = Pessimistic estimate. This is based on work turning out to be notably hard, or slow, or unlucky. E = Equilibristic estimate. This is based on success as 50% likely such as for critical chains and simulations.

Estimates are tricky because different manager roles and different personalities bias toward totally different/incompatible concepts of what an estimate actually means. The author's article is conflating realistic and pessimistic estimates: - Realistic e.g. tech managers and people who favors agile/lean/XP/etc. - Optimistic e.g. sales managers and people who want to promote. - Pessimistic e.g. risk managers and people who need firm deadlines. - Equilabristic e.g. project managers and people doing critical chain The abbreviation is ROPE, and it turns out to work really well in practice to cover all four bases. My notes are below. Constructive criticism welcome. https://github.com/SixArm/project-management-rope-estimate

Did you mean to link here? https://github.com/sixarm/sixarm_project_management_rope_est...

Estimates that are most successful, in my experience, leverage four perspectives: realistic (for people who prefer a quick approximation), optimistic-pessimistic (for people who prefer ranges and risks), and equilibristic (for people who leverage critical path and critical chain). The mnemonic is ROPE. https://github.com/SixArm/sixarm_project_management_rope_est... Estimates as work-hours by the person most-likely to do the work tend to work the best in my experience. Estimates as work-hours also are clear and direct for upper management, or across to other stakeholder organizations. If your estimates are solely within one team or sprint, then story points tend to feel fun and easy. If you can skip estimates all together then that's superb-- it helps to have a skilled team and also a high trust environment.

The best estimation technique I've seen is ROPE: Realistic, Optimistic, Pessimistic, Equilibristic. It's fast to ballpark, effective solo or with teams, great for PMs and managers, and able to go directly into critical chain scheduling or monte carlo simulations. https://github.com/SixArm/sixarm_project_management_rope_est...