Easily Estimate Projects Using Statistics and Excel
Pluralsight
Course Summary
Use Microsoft Excel's built-in statistical functions, course template files, and your own project knowledge to easily and confidently estimate project durations, work efforts, costs, agile sprints, and agile releases. Use the Unified Scheduling Method to confidently create a dynamic, right-sized project reserve for traditional projects.
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Course Description
How confident are you when you create project schedules and budgets? How confident does your project sponsor want you to be? What would it cost to increase your confidence, or how much less costly would your project be if you accepted more risk? Using Microsoft's built-in statistical functions, you can easily create probabilistic project estimates using just a 3-point estimate (minimum, most likely, maximum) for any uncertain outcome and a subjective opinion about how likely the most likely outcome really is. Using the normal distribution probability curve and Excel's statistical functions, it's easy to see the difference between low risk, high cost, long schedule estimates from high risk, low cost, short schedule estimates. The key concept that this course introduces is called Statistical PERT, which goes well beyond the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT.) Statisitical PERT can be used by both traditional and agile project teams to create project-related estimates. Using additional Excel statistical functions, this course also shows how traditional project teams can use the Unified Scheduling Method to create dynamic, right-sized project reserves for when their Statistical PERT estimates are exceeded during the project execution phase. Confidently create project estimates to fit any tolerance for risk you want using Microsoft Excel, Statistical PERT, and the Unified Scheduling Method!
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Course Syllabus
Easily Estimate Projects Using Statistics and Excel- 45m 13s
—Course Introduction 5m 18s
—Introduction to Statistical PERT and Unified Scheduling Method 4m 37s
—Estimation Techniques 3m 9s
—Estimating in the Area of Uncertainty 4m 2s
—Statistics Refresher Introduction 0m 53s
—Mean, Median and Mode 8m 17s
—Standard Deviation 9m 41s
—Bell-shaped Curves 2m 5s
—Excel's Statistical Functions 4m 14s
—Conclusion 2m 52sFoundational Underpinnings of Statistical PERT- 58m 54s
—Objectives 6m 21s
—PERT Estimation 7m 2s
—Parkinson's Law 7m 1s
—Normal Distribution using NORM.DIST (Part 1) 5m 22s
—PERT Standard Deviation 5m 32s
—Normal Distribution using NORM.DIST (Part 2) 2m 41s
—SPERT Estimation with High Expectation 10m 14s
—SPERT Estimation with Low Expectation 5m 24s
—SPERT Estimation with Moderate Expectation 2m 21s
—Characteristics of SPERT 3m 52s
—Conclusion 2m 58sDemonstrate Statistical PERT in Excel- 1h 4mThe Unified Scheduling Method (USM)- 1h 1mStatistical PERT for Agile Teams- 1h 1m