Benchmarking & Task Duration Estimates

As industries and firms face stiffer business climates in which they must overcome to succeed, there is a need to put into perspective techniques on how to overcome different challenges, particularly in the process of managing projects. This view holds true in the Industry I work for, as especially as this is a project driven industry (dependent on the planning and execution of projects).

Benchmarking is a very important tool in every project (and non- project) oriented industry. It is a process of learning that invokes the need for doing things better. According to Ifeoluwa and Yinshang (2010), "it is a management process that requires constant updating whereby performance is regularly compared with the best performers that can be found". The particle provided for analysis reveals in detail results 4 industries namely; Construction & Engineering, Software & Communications, Services and Production & Maintenance benchmarked for project planning & success. Results from the findings concluded that the Construction & Engineering Industry had the highest rating in the in the quality of planning and success of the project. The industry I work for fits into the Construction & Engineering category, as mine is clearly a project driven organization.

I will therefore address the following elements for comparison (benchmarking) of my industry and the results from the article: task duration Estimates, resources and cost allocation, and the degree of accuracy of the estimates linked to project success.

Task duration Estimates: Task duration is a product of the WBS, usually regarded as a "random variable" (Wysocki, 2012 pp.187) .from the project success analysis results of the article, the low cost & schedule depicted in table II revealed a very high level of project maturity in the case of Construction & Engineering. This could be as a result of very high levels of exposure and experience in task duration estimation activities, typically found in the execution of projects of a similar methodology. This has increased the level of competency and also lead to the reductions in schedule (and ultimately, cost) overruns likely to be encountered during the lifecycle of the project. So to that effect , the high level of exposure of new projects(i.e. being more project oriented ) can be regarded as an "enabler" in achieving exceptional performance in task duration Estimation(Ifeoluwa, Yinshang, 2010). This ultimately develops skills for the project manager (or planner) of the project to more accurately determine the estimation required for task duration. In using these results as a benchmark for the industry I work, I see the opportunity for improving task duration estimate techniques in order to achieve exceptional performance.

Resource& Cost allocation: Effective and efficient resource estimate can hugely benefit the execution of projects. For example, in the medical