Yes, estimating is one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish. As an engineer turned Project Manager a lot of my time is spent estimating for jobs, getting estimates from project team members and then chasing to see if the jobs are progressing to schedule.
There are only two ways I know to try and get good estimates. One involves intimate knowledge of the tasks in question and this allows you to have an educated discussion with the people you are delegating to. If you do not have any detailed knowledge of the tasks, the method that can be used is called either Blue Book (I think?) estimating or statistical estimating. They are more or less the same thing and involve collating information on all tasks completed previously and capturing the time it took to complete them. A list is produced which equates times to durations and this can be used as a reference to provide an idea if you can find similar tasks to the ones you are working on or wish to delegate.
Yes, estimating is one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish. As an engineer turned Project Manager a lot of my time is spent estimating for jobs, getting estimates from project team members and then chasing to see if the jobs are progressing to schedule.
There are only two ways I know to try and get good estimates. One involves intimate knowledge of the tasks in question and this allows you to have an educated discussion with the people you are delegating to. If you do not have any detailed knowledge of the tasks, the method that can be used is called either Blue Book (I think?) estimating or statistical estimating. They are more or less the same thing and involve collating information on all tasks completed previously and capturing the time it took to complete them. A list is produced which equates times to durations and this can be used as a reference to provide an idea if you can find similar tasks to the ones you are working on or wish to delegate.
