Expert Judgment: Involve Human Experts in Estimating Task Duration

Expert Judgment is a popular project planning technique that can be used to estimate duration of tasks and simple activities. The technique requires creation of an expert team that comprises people who must provide a duration estimate based upon their understanding of task inputs and outputs (including resources, goals and requirements).

The method is good because it lets establish a quick estimation process that provides the most accurate time estimate for activities. Meanwhile, it requires availability of knowledgeable and experienced experts. If there is no expert team, no solid rationale can be provided to the estimation process.

Expert judgment includes a series of actions that result in creating an accurate and rational estimate of task duration. In general, the following actions are included:

• Define a task or activity to be estimated
• Identify inputs and outputs of the task
• Think what people can become members of the expert team. The candidates should be knowledgeable and understand the task and its inputs and outputs.
• Form the team
• Provide a description of the task to the team
• Request the team for starting the estimation process
• Organize regular meetings with the team to discuss progress of the estimate
• Review suggestions and comments regarding the best duration of the task after the estimate is outlined
• Receive the estimate as the team finishes it.

	CentriQS Task Estimation Solution Task estimation is "must-have" of effective time tracking solution. CentriQS offers an easy way to estimate task duration. Users can either enter time required for task execution (if task has no sub-tasks) or break tasks down into subtasks, and then estimated duration of parent task will be automatically calculated as total of subtasks estimates.