Pay attention to the first 20% Effort period- it is the most critical part of your project. You’ve got your project started, you are excited, everybody is on fire, budgets are approved, there are successful kick off meetings… now is exactly the time to be worried. So, let’s define our Hope Period and Hope Target to try and determine if Hope assumptions will come true or prove to be false.

This is part of our innate decision making process that we cannot help but do (at least until AI takes over). Unlike a pill, we sometimes know there is barely any Hope, but we still try for that 1% chance. Therefore, Hope should be a set for an exact period of time where you expect to see some specific positive results.įor example, if I take a pill for 5 days I Hope to see my fever decrease from 102 to 98 in about 5 days. We tend to Hope for more happy days in our planning and wish that tomorrow too there will be a good day, but it doesn't always happen. That is to say, you know there is a problem, but you Hope everything will be okay, right? Here, an additional lesson can be applied from Robinson Crusoe’s adventures- A lesson that I find to be magic put into practice: Hope is your best friend and worst enemy. What I suggest at this point is you deal with Hope. Had you known the Total Estimated Effort, you wouldn’t be reading this article and would be doing more enjoyable things with your time right now. you didn’t consider this and that is why you are facing a problem. What did you think the project would look like when finished based on the Effort? Here, my friends, is the tricky part.

Next, let’s consider your initial consideration of Total Estimated Effort for the work. What was it? You can easily name this “Day One Initial Estimate” and, you can usually assign a number (for example, $1 million). If you find yourself in this position, begin by returning to your baseline assumption cost. Then, you must act fast before is too late. It is one thing to make decisions before things begin to pick up, but what happens after we decide to Go and realize along the way it is not worth the Effort? Well, this when jungle-like survival skills must kick in.īefore anything else, you as a project manager must recognize and admit things are not going as planned. Why is it then that you will never turn on Animal Planet and see such a lion act in this way, but you often hear of small businesses (90%) that fail in the first year and projects (80%) failing overall?Ĭommon in the field of project management are the phases of project initiation and project planning which involve a Go/No Go decision template. This reward is clearly not worth the Effort. Should a 300lbs lion burn 500 calories chasing a small rabbit that will give him only 100 calories in return? Of course, the answer is no. As the S-Curve of “Cost” as it relates to “Time” ramps up the steep incline during project execution, we must ask ourselves: will it be worth the Effort? Judging from the quote, there appears to be a point of no return in everything we do- our project endeavors included. “ow I, though too late, the folly of beginning a work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our own strength to go through with it.” In Daniel Defoe’s novel of Robinson Crusoe and his adventures at sea, a notable quote stands out:

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