Improving your estimates - TaskBlaze

My previous posting on David Seah's Emerging Task Planner states that one of the key benefits is the ability, over time, to improve your ability to estimate the effort required for a task.

The way I do this is using a neat little tool from Brad Isaac from his AchieveIt site called TaskBlaze.

This is a simple stopwatch with start/stop functionality that integrates into Outlook to create a calendar entry with categories that you choose.

This gives you:

1. A record of the actual elapsed time taken
2. A record with codes that easily allow you to update your timesheet

This will help you measure your ability to estimate and for those of you that use EVM it gives you a way to track your SPI for a given task.

The PM Podast - a review

As I start to expand into a new role as a project manager I wanted to get some real first hand knowledge to learn by. Book smarts are OK so I did go out and get a language book, the PMBOK third edition, if I'm going to be a project manager I might as well speak the same language right?

Anyway to get beyond the book smarts I started looking for a way to use my newest toy, my iPod, to help. I had already found Controlling Chaos so I went looking for another, complimentary, resource. This is how I found Cornelius Fichtner and The PM Podcast.

Cornelius has a good structure as he leads you in to the interview du jour. His light hearted style leads to easy listening and the length of the 'cast hovers around the 40 minute mark.

He has been very active and his is well into 60 episodes. The supporting website is a very valuable resource and some of his guests have taken me deeper into the world of Project Management.

Well worth listening to.

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