Big Data and Project Estimates

March Madness is due to hit in full force soon. I try to ignore this fact but my husband warns me every year when the season is approaching (so I can know why he is hibernating).

For those who aren’t basketball fans, March Madness is the American (United States) National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments.

This year it is especially big news because Warren Buffett, together with his company, Berkshire Hathaway, are offering $1 billion to any person who can correctly pick the winners of all 63 games in this year’s NCAA men’s college basketball tournament. The odds, without tools, are 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

To add to your chances of winning, Paul Bessire has created an application called The Predictalator. He says this software has been incredibly accurate in predicting outcomes of sports games. If you want to spend time on going for the billion, there’s a tool.

The Predictalator analyzes multitudes of factors and converts them into probable outcomes.

Let’s apply these estimates to projects. If we had a project with 64 team members (just like there are 64 teams in the Men’s NCAA tournament), and asked each team member for an estimate on an activity, we would have 1 in 9.2 quintillion odds that all of the estimates would be correct; correct meaning exactly equal to the actual outcome. If we had only 64 activities in a project – which would be a pretty small project – and had one estimate for duration for each activity, again the odds would be 1 in 9.2 quintillion that the total estimate would be on target.

Which leads me to think – why do project managers, sponsors, team members and clients (okay, project stakeholders in general) often expect projects to be “on” their estimates? Certainly the odds are wildly against that.

Of course, as we get closer to the end, our estimates for the project budget and duration are much more accurate – just like when we get down to the final game in a basketball tournament.

While The Predictalator teaches us there is no safe bet on games or projects, perhaps a good webinar for basketball bettors would be on Rolling Wave Planning, to continuously update their estimates.

Starting Something New?

In this day and age many businesses are working on incorporating online tools into their product portfolio. If you are, you might want to consider planning before you begin your exciting new project.

Here are four guidelines:

1. Begin with the end in mind. Stephen Covey’s maxim holds true for any project. Before you can start any venture or project, you must know what you want!
2. Gather a support team. It is hard to work by yourself. In fact, we cannot achieve many goals without the involvement of other people. Build in support for yourself and your project. Think about whose help you will need in achieving your aims, and get in touch with them. It might take a few conversations to get the ball rolling, but you will eventually find it much easier to achieve your project goals with the right team in place.
3. Identify everything you need to do to achieve your goal. You will want the help of your team to do this. Maybe you will have a brainstorming meeting where everyone feels welcome to shout out their ideas about the tasks required. Once you have identified what needs to be done, you can put the tasks in order and figure out how long each will take and who will do them.
4. Document! Don’t forget to put your plan in writing. This will make tracking and keeping control much easier. As well, any decisions about your project, such as what tools you will use or who does what, should be documented.

Measuring Your Personal Gas Gauge

In a matter of two weeks I heard the same message.

In Kansas City we talked about poker. You have two players, both with a pair of 7’s. One player is down to their last $10, the other has $1000s in chips. Who plays with more confidence?

When he was here in Halifax, Mike Lipkin talked about a gas gauge: there are two drivers, with one the needle is on Empty, the other the needle is on Full. Who drives with more confidence?

Here is the hard question: on a daily basis, what are you measuring? What is your gas/poker chips that define your confidence, your success? Not your bosses or your co-workers measure, your measure. You are in control of defining (and measuring) your success.

Years ago I had a director who left work every day promptly at 4:30 because he had a young family at home. Some people measured that as a fault; luckily, his family gauge, his key measure of success, was full when he left.

Hindsight is 20-20. Maybe running out of chips gets you first in line at the buffet, or maybe you are still using the old “Ran out of Gas” routine. But then again, maybe not. Go fill 'er up.