It’s better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong in your projects

The world of work seems full of activities that have to be made sense of, thought over,? planned and put into practice. They are often messy, which makes them hard to be precise about.

The world of work seems full of activities that have to be made sense of, thought over,? planned and put into practice. They are often messy which makes them hard to be precise about.? It’s often better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong and this broad scoping is often made easier by using simple frameworks.

Let's imagine we're planning a big group project, like putting on a play or building a treehouse. We want to figure out how long it's going to take us. To do this, we can think about how an “Average Joe or Joanne" (Jo for short), the ‘normal’, 'average' person might handle the tasks involved. How long would it take a ‘normal person’ to do it. (Point out that you’re not implying anyone is above or below normal or abnormal! It’s just a scoping device). What is reasonable? The idea is not too dissimilar from the 'reasonable person' concept in law.

Here's a simple guide to help us plan:

Step 1: Picture the Average Jo

Think about what our friend Jo can do. He's not a superhero, but he's not a couch potato either. Jo works well for about 6 hours a day, not counting the time he's sipping coffee or chatting about the soccer.

Step 2: List All the Little Jobs

Write down everything we need to do for our project. Then, chop up big jobs into smaller bits. It's like planning a meal - instead of just "make dinner," we list "chop veggies," "boil water," "cook pasta," and so on. If you’ve been studying problem solving you may use something like the McKinsey SCQA method or SIPOC.?

Step 3: Guess How Long Each Bit Takes for Jo

Now, let's guess how long each little job will take Jo to do. We know she might need to learn a thing or two, some bits might be tricky, and sometimes life throws a wrench in our plans (like a surprise visit from the mother-in-law). Give her the rough time it’d take for the ‘normal’ or ‘average’ person to learn. Don’t fantasise that she is a superhero.

Step 4: Add Extra Time for Surprises

We all know things don't always go as planned. Let's add some extra time to our guess, just in case. If we think our project will take 10 days, we might add 2 more days for those "just in case" moments.

?Step 5: Check if Jobs Depend on Each Other

Some jobs might need to be done before others can start. It's like waiting for the glue to dry before painting. And while Jo is good at juggling tasks, doing too many things at once might slow him down. Remember, one of Murphy's laws is that "whenever you set out to do something, something else must be done first".

Step 6: Don't Forget the Double-Check

After Jo finishes a job, she'll need to check her work. Maybe we'll need to tweak a few things or redo a part that's not quite right.

"Books aren't written - they're rewritten." - Michael Crichton

Step 7: Count Up the Total Time

Let's add up all the time we guessed for each job, plus the extra "just in case" time, and the double-checking time. That's how long our project might take.

Step 8: Think About Our Team

If we have more than one Jo helping out, we can do things faster. But we also need to chat and work together, which takes time too.

Step 9: Talk It Over and Tweak It

Once we've got our plan, let's chat with the team. Maybe someone has a great tip or spots something we missed. We can always make our plan better.

Example:

Imagine we've got 10 jobs, and we think each one will take Jo about 3 days. That's 30 days of work. But with our extra "just in case" time, it's more like 36 days. If Jo's working 6 hours a day, that's 216 hours in total.

But wait, what if Jo can't start painting until the glue is dry? We might need to shuffle things around, which could take longer. Or what if we have a few more Jos? Then we could finish quicker, as long as they don't get in each other's way.

This is a rough plan – a starting point. It’s a way to use the idea of how long would it would take an average person, in normal life with reasonable expectations and behaviour to do it. Real life is a bit messier, so we should keep checking our plan and changing it as we go along. That way, we'll stay on track to finish our project without any last-minute panic. Remember - again - that it’s always better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.

Using the benchmark of the ‘normal’ or 'average' person can help you get a ‘good enough’ estimate in of how long your project can take when precision measurement is impossible.?