Handling uncertainty and risks

As mentioned previously, the ETC function gives the employee the opportunity to enter the uncertainty level on a task. If the project manager sees that an employee is uncertain about the estimate, it is possible to react on this and talk to the employee about it. An uncertain time estimate may be due to an incomplete tasks description or a project where the scope has been changed several times causing confusion among employees. The project manager maybe discovers that the project needs better feasibility studies, or that a pilot study is necessary for the employees to provide certain time estimates.

In this way, the ETC function is part of a risk assessment of the project plan. Off course, it is possible that employees enter high certainty estimates that turn out to be wrong and vice versa. Here, the project manager’s experience and common sense play a part in assessing the accuracy of the estimates.