Establish Estimates

The first step in implementing project planning is establish and maintain project planning parameters.

Project planning parameters include all information needed by the project to perform the necessary planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. Estimates of planning parameters should have a sound basis to instill confidence that any plans based on these estimates are capable of supporting project objectives.

Factors that are typically considered when estimating these parameters include the following:

• Project requirements, including the product requirements (functional and non-functional requirements), the requirements imposed by the organization, the requirements imposed by the customer, and other requirements that impact the project
• Scope of the project (What project will do ?)
• Identified tasks and work products
• Technical approach
• Selected project life-cycle model (e.g., waterfall, incremental, spiral, or prototyping etc)
• Attributes of the work products and tasks (e.g., size, complexity, or difficulty)
• Schedule
• Models or historical data for converting the attributes of the work products and tasks into labour hours and cost
• Methodology (e.g., models, data, algorithms) used to determine needed material, skills, labour hours, and cost

Documentation of the estimating rationale and supporting data is needed for stakeholders’ review and commitment to the plan and for maintenance of the plan during project development time.