Articles

Project Planning in the Kitchen

It’s 9 pm on a weeknight. You just got home from a long day of work, errands, and an event. You’re tired, your social energy battery is low, but more importantly you’re starving.  

After checking what’s in your fridge and pantry, you find an online recipe that matches what’s on hand and seems to require little prep work. You start peeling and chopping vegetables and getting everything ready. Right before you start cooking, you read the full recipe and realize it needs to simmer for at least an hour before it’s ready to eat. Now you’re tired, you have a meal half prepped, and few other ingredients to make something else. You resign yourself to your fate and open DoorDash to see what’s available for delivery.  

This situation is a real-life example of the difference between effort estimation and total duration. In project management, effort estimation can be defined as the hands-on time it takes for you to complete a task. To go back to our example from earlier, that can be prep time for a recipe. Total duration on the other hand accounts for the effort estimation and any other factors, like getting approvals, testing, and implementing feedback. In cooking terms, total duration would be total time to make a recipe from start to finish, including cook time. 

Before choosing a recipe, it is important to not only think about the ingredients and preparation that you have available, but the total cook time as well. If total cook time isn’t taken into account, you might slate a long recipe for a night where you have little time. That could delay your bedtime routine, including when you’re able to finally make it into bed. This could also affect the next day and how you’re able to show up on little sleep.  

Before starting a project, you’ll want to take similar things into account. Instead of ingredients, prep time, and cook time, it’s thinking about the project in terms of resources, effort estimation, and total duration. If you fail to look at all of these things, including total duration, there will be widespread impact. Milestones could be delayed, causing further delays for dependencies, which could lead to the entire project going over time and over budget.  

When planning your next project (or meal), make sure to look at the total duration instead of just the effort estimate. Zooming out a little bit will help you to plan out projects, and what comes after, a little more thoughtfully.  

In the meantime, anyone want to go get a snack?  

Crystal Cory is the current member in charge of Friday Facts. She likes thinking about common situations in new a different ways to solidify learning and explore concepts. She became a member of this year and is excited to meet more people in the chapter!