The Unresolved Issue of Estimating and Forecasting

To be deemed a success, projects are generally judged on how well they delivered against their quadruple objectives of time, cost, scope and benefits when the project completes. To gain and maintain confidence through the journey to completion, projects will also be judged on how well they have delivered on milestones and the accuracy, or perhaps the believability, of their forecasts for the subsequent milestones through to the end of the project.

Therefore, get the estimates wrong and what could otherwise be a successful project could be viewed as a failure. Overestimating may prevent a project from getting started in the first place or it will tie up investment and resources which could be invested in other projects. Underestimating may result in a project becoming unaffordable if additional investment cannot be secured or unviable of the reduction in scope or later delivery erodes the promised benefits.

The Major Projects Association has looked at estimating and forecasting on three prior occasions. In 1984 through the lens of scenario planning, in 2013 through the lens of project controls and lessons from the 2012 Games, and in 2021 through the lens of benchmarking. Scanning the reports from these previous seminars highlights that while we have sought to improve our ability to estimate and forecast over the past four decades that the challenges we face have increased in parallel and frankly, it remains an unresolved issue. In many ways it could be argued that the level of market volatility we are currently facing means the gap between estimating performance and capability has never been greater. A project estimating 4% CPI for inflation on materials two years ago could be facing with a ten fold error as some materials have increased by more than 40% since. How can we estimate when there is such volatility? Do we need to place more emphasis on forecasting and mechanisms to adapt projects as assumptions upon which they are based veer to extreme alternatives?

Join us for this seminar where we will explore the unresolved issue of estimating and forecasting. We will gain insights from and an update on best practice guidance from the Association of Cost Engineers (ACOSTE), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) and from Oxford Global Projects on Reference Class Forecasting (RCF). We will then explore the practitioner's view from both a client perspective before looking at how estimating and forecasting might evolve or even transform. Join us to give your best prediction and help us resolve the unresolved issue of estimating and forecasting.

This event is followed by an evening Data and Digital Showcase on how projects are embracing data analytics, AI benchmarking services and date trusts to improve project controls. - you will need to register separately for this if you would like to attend both parts.