3.8 Chapter Review
3.8.1 Chapter summary
Effective planning begins with the decision and final deliverables, then works backward to identify tasks, dependencies, milestones, reviews, and risks. Estimates should distinguish active effort from calendar time, include integration and revision, and be updated when new evidence changes the scope or sequence of work.
3.8.2 Common mistakes
- estimating only first-pass production time;
- using the final deadline as the first integration date;
- assigning tasks without reviewers;
- failing to distinguish effort from waiting time;
- recording risks without owners or responses;
- leaving large tasks such as “finish report” undecomposed; and
- treating the schedule as fixed after project assumptions change.
Common mistake: Integration is not a final formatting step. It is analytical work that reconciles definitions, methods, evidence, citations, conclusions, and recommendations across the project.
3.8.4 Exercises
Exercise 1. Choose one major deliverable and decompose it into tasks that take no more than four hours each. Identify the output, owner, dependency, reviewer, definition of done, estimated effort, and one realistic risk for every major stage.
One Possible Answer
For an EDA report, work packages could include importing and validating files, confirming grain and keys, producing a data-quality table, analyzing individual variables, examining priority relationships, drafting findings, reproducing all outputs, and completing editorial review. Each package should name its output and reviewer. A definition of done should be observable, such as “all figures regenerate from the clean data and every reported denominator is documented,” rather than “EDA complete.”
Exercise 2. Create a twelve-week NVRW timeline with dependencies, review gates, contingency, and named deliverables. Include integration and revision before the final handoff.
One Possible Answer
A defensible sequence is: weeks 1 to 2 for scope, charter, access, and dictionary; weeks 3 to 4 for data validation and EDA; week 5 for an integrated evidence review; weeks 6 to 7 for secondary research and modelling; week 8 for forecasting and CLV; week 9 for recommendation synthesis; week 10 for a complete report draft; week 11 for technical and communication review; and week 12 for revision and handoff. Contingency should be reserved before final delivery, not added after it.
Exercise 3. Build a risk register containing at least one data, analytical, collaboration, client, and communication risk.
One Possible Answer
Examples include undocumented membership status codes, too few eligible cases for a proposed model, an unavailable team reviewer, delayed confirmation of a business definition, and a presentation that cannot be understood without the report. Each entry should include likelihood, impact, warning signs, mitigation, contingency, owner, and review date.
Exercise 4. Estimate the effort required for the EDA report using separate production, verification, revision, integration, and contingency estimates.
One Possible Answer
One reasonable estimate is 18 hours for production, 6 hours for independent verification, 6 hours for revision, 5 hours for integration with the project narrative, and 5 hours of contingency, for 40 hours total. The exact values will vary, but verification, integration, and revision must appear as explicit work rather than being hidden inside the production estimate.