The Top Ten Reasons Projects Fail (Part 9)

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The Top Ten Reasons Projects Fail (Part 9)

Frank Winters

November 5, 2003






This entry in the failure series is a follow-up to Part 8 regarding estimation. The topic deserves more thought and discussion, and I've had several comments regarding Part 8, so here's some more about estimation.

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What is an appropriate confidence level?

Many believe that estimates with high confidence levels--I recommend striving for 95 percent -- are much more costly than those with lower confidence levels. So much more so that it just doesn't pay to routinely strive for 95 percent confidence.

 

A reviewer of part 8 likes to try for 80 percent. He feels that if estimates are consistently at 80 percent, a team should expect to miss the targets one time in five--a much better than average success rate, he said.



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