A Multi-Year, Multi-Million Cost Estimate Post Mortem Review

A couple of weeks ago, I completed a behemoth $56 million dollar cost estimate that involved capturing costs from this year through 2020.  The client wanted us to include in our estimate costs that would be “incremental” to the existing annual budget as a result of the increase in scope that they had specified. The objectives of this cost estimate was to provide a resource that could be used for planning and budgeting, would enable the organization to manage its investment portfolio, allocate and or obtain additional funding as needed to fund the project or determine if they needed to reduce scope. The project was a success and the estimate and accompanying resources were very well received by the client. However, I must say I was very relieved when the client was pleased as the visibility of this project extended from my level up to the Presidents of both organizations. 

               There were several processes that made this project go smoothly in spite of its size and complexity.  The first was a joint planning session for the project by our leadership team and the client.  Both organizations had program, finance and senior management at the table which was critical. We agreed upon the strategy, timeline, cost template and deliverables that would accompany the cost template.  This planning session enabled everyone to walk away with a common understanding. Additionally, we had weekly touch base calls to vet any additional questions, clarify additional inputs, and obtain sign off on our assumptions that we were using for the project (Greer, 2010).  Following this planning session, I coordinated a large internal kick-off session with all key managers and the worker-bees from each area that would be providing costs. This internal kick-off helped set the stage of why the estimate was important and how it could help secure their jobs through 2020. The carrot of confirming additional work and job security was one that motivated many to be timely in their deliverables needed for the estimate. We had several artifacts such as a project timeline with milestone charts, cost templates, definitions, FAQ’s and assumption documents that were distributed at the kickoff meeting.  Our team of four that worked on coordinating the project has a good chemistry and trust of each other which helped during the crunch time and brought the project to the finish line.  Lastly, leadership was key. I had my Senior VP attend the kick-off session and demonstrate his support of the project and emphasize the importance of it.   When we delivered the cost estimate we followed the delivery by a four hour face to face meeting to walk senior leadership through estimate and answer questions that they had.  The face to face final meeting provided the opportunity to confirm what we delivered met their needs and expectations and answer questions and review the resources so everyone had common understanding of the breadth and scope of what we delivered.

               An area that was most challenging was the aggressive timeline of the project. The project kick-off was June 15 and final cost estimate was due to the client on September 30^th.   From June through early July the majority of the team was maxed out with deliverables for the operational part of the project then July 4^th hit.  In earnest between summer schedules and other workloads many unfortunately did not deliver their inputs until September which caused an additional burden on my finance colleague and my team members working on the estimate.   We had to work several weekends and nights because others did not adhere to the project schedule.  Because our organization is a matrix structure  is was challenging to get those who missed the deadline to deliver as I have no authority over them and I had to continue to chase until they provided what was needed which took way too much effort on my part. This window was selected for the project as it was suppose to be our quieter time but this was not the case.  In the future I would of utilized a better work break down process and reporting of tasks, built more time in the schedule to review the inputs received from each area and time for it iterations.  Another challenge was each area had to provide their estimate back to me in a very complicated excel template that was hard to navigate and input. We were tied to this template as that was what was agreed upon but when we went to actually input information found it time-intensive to use.  For future estimates the feedback was we need to create a new template to capture costs and make it easier and faster to use. 

               Upon reflection of this project it was deemed truely a success. For the future and next go around I need to be more supportive of my internal stakeholders, add more time to the project schedule and make the tasks easier and less burdensome for everyone involved.

-Michelle Cosner

References

Greer, M. (2010). The project management minimalist: Just enough PM to rock your projects! (Laureate custom ed.). Baltimore: Laureate Education, Inc.