We learned in lecture this week that Analogous Cost Estimating is quick, less accurate, less costly, tasks don’t need to be identified, gives PM idea of management expectations, and overall project costs are capped. Whereas Bottom Up Estimating is more accurate, takes time and money, gains buy-in from the team, based on a detailed analysis of project, and provides a basis for monitoring and controlling.

Which cost estimating technique do you use at your company? If you were a PM, which cost estimating technique would you use?

For my company, it depends on the project/technology and stage. For example a project for a CAR-T cell immunotherapy would use a bottom up estimating because it would be a well-defined and understood project and would be more accurate. Whereas for a medical device that we wouldn’t have as much familiarity with in developing, we would use Analogous estimating because the estimates could be prepared with little detail and understanding of the project and it would be quick. Once we would have more information at a later stage with more details and understanding of the project, we would do a bottom up estimate.