#161. Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner: every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated.
Because no one wins overestimated projects...
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Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner on behalf of a customer, every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated.
G’day and welcome to Amazing Apps. I’m your host, Microsoft MVP, Neil Benson.
I’m on a mission to help you master agile practices and build amazing apps on the Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365.
Amazing Apps is a result of my curiosity and experiments with new ways of building amazing business apps and high-performing teams.
It’s full of advice from my guests, and examples from some of my work over the last few years leading business applications teams and practices.
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Here’s a sobering thought. Whether you’re an internal developer working for a Microsoft customer or a consultant working for a Microsoft partner on behalf of a customer, every Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project you have ever worked on has been underestimated.
1. And it’s not because you or your team are inexperienced at estimating – although taking estimating training is a great idea.
2. And it’s not because you had one person – a lead developer or architect – estimate all the requirements – although estimating as a team is better.
3. And it’s not because you analysed everything in advance and published a requirements specification – although just-in-time analysis is better.
4. And it’s not because you’ve designed everything upfront and published a design specification – although emergent design is better.
5. And it’s not because you’ve estimated the effort in units of time like hours or days – although story points are better.
6. And it’s not because your team only estimated the effort involved in meeting the requirements– although using risk-adjusted estimates is better.
7. And it’s not because you’re estimates are too precise – even though using a Fibonacci sequence is better.
8. And it’s not because your user stories weren’t well-written or lacked acceptance criteria – although good user stories are better.
9. And it’s not because some user stories were missing altogether – although techniques like user story mapping that can reveal incomplete backlogs are better.
10. And it’s not usually because the technology or the problem domain were unfamiliar – although having technical and subject matter expertise on your team is much better.
Those are ten practices for improving your estimates, but even if you train your team in estimating projects, estimate together as a team, analyse requirements just-in-time, allow designs to emerge, use a Fibonacci sequence of story points to estimate risk-adjusted requirements, have amazingly unambiguous user stories and a backlog that’s close to perfection – your Power Platform or Dynamics 365 project is still likely to be underestimated.
And here’s why.
You don’t win overestimated projects.
Let’s use a thought experiment to look back on a recent project with 20:20 hindsight.
Your delivery team has just completed another major release of a mission-critical, enterprise application and is starting to scale down and handover to the application support crew. Another successful project completed.
This one was 1,000 story points in size. Delivering nearly 50 points per sprint on average, your team, has been working diligently for nearly a year. The cost of the work was close to 1.5 million dollars.
But when you look back at the original proposal (if you work for a Microsoft partner) or business case (if you work for a Microsoft customer), the estimate was just 800 story points and you had forecast a velocity of 60 points per sprint. The project was supposed to take six month and cost a million dollars.
So, what happened?
The project was approved. That’s what happened.
No one wins overestimated projects.
When the project committee reviewed the proposals they received, they naturally selected the proposal with a project plan that fit within a budget they perceived as reasonable at the time.
The underestimated plan was, naturally, far more likely to be approved than an overestimated plan. Underestimated plans are more likely to be approved even than a perfectly estimated plan (although you can only know a estimate was perfect in hindsight).
In the case of your project, where you had estimated 800 points, six months and a million dollars, there was another team that had estimated 1,000 points, a nine-month duration and a 1.5 million budget.
But that your underestimated proposal was selected. The perfectly estimated proposal was rejected because no one knew it was perfectly estimated at the time. Your plan looked more attractive because it was lower cost and a shorter time to value.
The reality is that overestimated projects don’t get approved. Which means that most projects that have been approved are likely to be underestimated.
The next time your sales team rings the bell because a customer has signed a statement of work, remember, the project is underestimated.
The project you’re currently working on right now: probably underestimated.
I wish had a magic wand to solve this problem. To help decision makers wisely choose the most accurate proposal, not just the cheapest.
But I’ve got to go now. We’re busy renovating the back of our house. We’ve just received a couple of quotes from local builders to replace some upstairs windows and I need to call back one of the builders – the one with the cheapest quote.
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Amazing Apps and found it useful.
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Until next time, keep experimenting.
