Since we launched our beta program at the DEMO conference in January, we’ve been thrilled to see thousands of people sign up for LiquidPlanner accounts. Many of them are already actively managing projects using LiquidPlanner, but of course, as with any new service, some of the new accounts are not yet in use.

This past weekend, we sent out a brief survey to a few of the folks who signed up for LiquidPlanner but weren’t yet using it to manage their projects. Could they not figure out how to use it? Were we missing critical features? Or were they simply too busy to try it out? The answers were varied, with the majority responding that they haven’t had time since signing up to really see what we were all about.

Interestingly, the answers to another question in the survey validated an assumption we’ve been working against for a few months now: that most people haven’t found a project management tool they like yet. We asked these same people what product they were currently using to manage their projects, and over 50% responded that they weren’t using any formal project management software. (?!?!) Maybe they were building lists in Excel, writing milestones on whiteboards, or sending task lists around in email. This percentage is amazing, given that the SimpleSpark catalog alone lists nearly 250 project management apps. One might think that, by now, everyone would have found the tool that’s right for them.

This is like hearing that someone hasn’t found the right bank yet, so they’re just keeping their cash under the mattress in the meantime. For serious projects, those types of tools just don’t scale.

Edited for clarification on February 22.

We just discovered Bas de Baar, also known as “The Project Shrink”… well… actually he discovered us. Note the interview he did with Jason recently. He has a lot of great things to say about people and project management and I recommend everyone interested in the subject consider adding his blog to thier RSS readers.

People who know me know that I like to have a plan, but I’m the first one to stray from it. This may seem like a strange contradiction or worse hypocrisy, but here’s my justification: if everything goes according to plan, the best outcome is limited to your initial imagination.

I’m not willing to settle for our “initial” imagination because routinely our best ideas come mid-stream during the project. If you are doing work where creativity counts and innovation is part of the formula, you might find that giving that creativity more room to breathe in your plan makes good sense. A great way to do this is with ranged estimation. We usually talk about a ranged estimate (e.g. 5 days – 20 days) as a way to capture uncertainty but it is also a great way to give room to possibilities in your schedule as well. Once you’re willing to admit that you can’t figure it all out up front, this gets easy, just ask your team to make the ranges a bit wider for things they have lingering and nagging thoughts about. You can always narrow it when you get closer but now you’ve left a bit of room.

With all this room in the schedule, why plan? Planning keeps us from getting lost and helps us stay focused on delivering business value. In our team’s case, that value is not always what we set out to do; sometimes it’s better because we didn’t follow the plan.

Of course because LP is flexible and eats changes for breakfast, our plan was smart enough to follow us.

So, I stumbled across this quote by Sir Francis Bacon (you know, the guy who invented the scientific method) regarding the relationship between doubt and certainty.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts;
but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
- Sir Francis Bacon

It got me thinking because I this happens all the time in projects. And you know what happens when I start thinking… blog post. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I want to talk about estimation, but first I want to talk about beer and wine. Specifically, the act of opening beer and wine bottles.

For about 2.5 years, we kept our bottle opener in our junk drawer, all the way across the kitchen from the refrigerator and pantry. And for 2.5 years, every time we opened a bottle (which was pretty often), we walked across the room to open it, then back again for a glass.

Then one day, I had a true lightbulb moment. I should keep the bottle opener in the silverware drawer! It’s right next to the fridge, right next to the glasses, even right next to the trash can. Think of the time it will save! Think of the convenience! Wow. Things in the kitchen have been better ever since.

How does this relate to estimation, you ask? Well, I had the same lightbulb moment when I was first introduced to the concept of ranged estimation. For years, I’d used single-point estimates like the rest of the world, hardly thinking a thing about it. I’d take a guess, pad it a bit for safety, enter it, and forget it.

But when I first got to actually USE LiquidPlanner (about nine months ago now) and build a project plan in it — and enter my estimates in ranges — suddenly a whole new world of project scheduling opened up for me. Estimating in ranges is actually considerably easier than estimating with single-points. After all, we think about time in ranges for most uncertain things in life.

With LiquidPlanner, I can see at a glance the best-case and worst-case scenarios for completing every task. For every project, I get a statistically-correct schedule. Now that I’ve tasted ranged estimation, I never, ever want to go back to single-point estimation. Not when there’s a better way.