It is immaterial what you do or where you live, since it is your attitude which will determine the quality of your relationships. Hence, this applies to just about everything else in your life. Hence, you need to select your attitudes. And since you are free to choose any attitude, why not choose a Really Useful Attitude.
In order to face any situation, your attitude will always precede you. In fact, it is the central force in your life. It is your attitude which controls the quality as well as the appearance of everything you do.

Really Useful Attitudes which you want to see in others are the ones which you need to imbibe in yourself. Some of these are:

• Being warm and Enthusiastic when dealing with others. Besides, your Confident and Supportive nature will make you a good team player.
• A Relaxed as well as an obliging attitude will take you everywhere.
• A Curious as well as a Resourceful person is liked by all.
• Make others Comfortable with you and be Helpful towards them.
• Always have an Engaging and a laid back look about yourself.
• Be Patient with others and be Welcoming at all times.
• Have a Cheery and Interested look about yourself.

The Really Useless Attitudes which you need to avoid or even give up completely include:

• Being Angry or Sarcastic while interacting with others.
• Having an impatient or bored outlook is also not appreciated by others.
• Being Disrespectful or Conceited will definitely not make you a good team player.
• Being Pessimistic or Anxious at all times is a very negative attitude.
• Never be Rude or Suspicious of others in your team.
• To be Vengeful or Afraid is a Really Useless Attitude.
• By being Self-conscious or mocking others, will not lead you anywhere.
• Having an Embarrassed or Dutiful attitude is also not good.

This was the primary step. This involved Identification of the Problem as well as its perceived Solution.

Next step is the creation of A Personal Action Plan. Answer this simple question – My team can count on me to…

This answer will tell you about your strengths as well as weaknesses. You will know how you are perceived by others. The fact remains that what we perceive ourselves may be different from the way others perceive us.

The next question which you need to answer is the specific changes that you want to see within your team in the next three months. This will define the goals for your team and the way to achieve them.

Next comes the part that you are going to play in achieving those goals. The answer here has to be quantifiable.

The last question which you need to answer is “This is how I will know I have done it.”

Once the matrix is qualitative as well as quantitative, the results become visible to all. This is a good strategy to determine your contribution to your team, as well as to know how good you are as a team player.

To conclude, to be a good team player, one must possess both interpersonal skills as well as technical competencies required to perform their job role. The organization must revise the reward structure so as to boost collaborative and team efforts. Also, the organization should provide training to promote teamwork skills and competencies. A good team player must be flexible in approach. He should be an active listener as well as should remain optimistic. He should communicate effectively. He should be honest as well as loyal and committed to the team. Last but not the least; a good team player must be dependable and reliable. He should meet the targets within specified deadline.

This post came from Management Study Guide

What makes the results meaningful is that each week, on Mondays, you’re stepping back and looking across what matters in your life.  This means taking a look at your life hot spots (mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun.)  It also means taking a look at the activities and projects you are juggling at work and in your personal life.  It’s a quick way to see the forest from the trees.  This is how you carve out meaningful results for the week.  You can see the end in mind, and when you know the goals, you can pace yourself better, prioritize easier, and focus more effectively.

Each day, you can create stories for your results.  Using The Rule of 3, you limit yourself to 3 stories (you can always bite off more, but use 3 to focus and concentrate your time and energy.)  To guide yourself, you simply ask, “What are my 3 best results for today?”  The Rule of 3 has been around for a long time.  Marketing uses it.  The military uses it.  You can use it in your everyday life to avoid overwhelm, organize your time and energy, and simplify your life, while improving your results.

On Friday’s, this is your time to reflect and check the score.  Simply ask yourself what are 3 things going well and what are 3 things to improve.  This is a chance to celebrate your victories and to learn your personal success patterns and personal anti-patterns.  It’s also a great way to improve your rhythm of results.  If things aren’t getting done, you need to ask yourself, why?  Are you biting off too much, or are you getting distracted.  If you’re getting things done, but not getting the results you want, you have to ask yourself, are you working on the right things?  Are you spending the right time and the right energy, or does it feel more like you’re just going through the motions.  Use your own reflection and insights as a way to learn and improve.  The beauty is, you get a new chance at results, each day and each week.  You can test what you learn, apply your learning, and improve as you go.

If you want to know more please visit the J.D. Meier’s Blog.

The ones that I’ve enjoyed the most are:

Doubletap: Carrying a gun is a great idea but it should never be your primary weapon. When you do end up using it for that last minute ‘oh shit’ moment remember to double tap. Its an emergency and thats why your using it and not your cricket bat so why skimp? One bullet more in the head will go a long way to ensuring your survival.

No Attachments: This is a tough one but you can not have attachments. If you got kids or a wife your less likely to survive then the gal or guy who has no attachments and nothing slowing him or her down. Or worse yet making bonehead decisions like ‘going back into the room’

Travel in a Group: The best way to increase your odds of survival when travelling in a zombie outbreak is to make sure your a traveling buffet. Going it alone gives the zombies no choices but to eat you. Going it with the old man with the limp, the little kid who cant run and the middle aged woman with the plastic leg gives the zombies more options and you better odds you can run away faster then they can.

Keep the Dumb Dumbs Close at Hand: One of the most sure fire ways of making sure you survive is keeping the less intelligent as close at hand as possible. When you find somebody who asks you ‘Whats going on? What Happened? Those are the ones you want with you. That way when the zombies come they are likely to stupid to realize its not Amway calling and run.

Kill with Efficiency: Its not about pretty its about efficiency. Alot of folks run for the gun cabinet where as the truly savvy go looking for the most blunt and effective way to destroy the brain. That can be anything from a baseball bat… to a toilet lid! Kill with Efficiency… dont use weapons that need something to work and use weapons you can swing over and over and over again. You dont tend to run into 1 zombie at a time.

Don’t Be a Hero: The hot chick who was totally gonna give you some is not worth becoming the undead. So when the going gets rough and the hot chick is about to get undead… its time to flee. No making a stand no ending up a brave zombie. Better to be a chicken liver live guy.

Know Your Way out! Nothing worse then a poorly planned escape. If your going to be a hero its always a good idea to plan ahead and as the rule states.. know your way out!

Be ruthless: Much like having no attachments being ruthless is key. When your bride turns into the undead, reach for the lid to the toilet seat and be ruthless. The weak and compassionate will not survive in the world of the undead.

Check the Back Seat. I cant tell you how many times somebody has eaten it or in this case been eaten because they are just not smart enough to check the back seat. Always check the back seat friends. Always!

These are good lessons. Enjoy.

Also great to better understand the South African Story.

I let you with a great poem that inspired Nelson Mandela, and I found it also meaningfully to me.

OUT of the night that covers me,  
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.  
  
In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed.  
  
Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.  
  
It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

When we loose trust or respect by someone it takes lots and lots of positive actions to recover it.

One possible way of building trust and respect can be shown by the Howard Jackson respect Model:

In this model we start at the bottom of the pyramid with Straight Talk, and move through the steps of Listening for Understanding, Making Commitments, being Reliable, creating Trust, and then finally earning Respect.

Straight Talk  – Open and direct communication is the first building block for trust and respect.

Listening for Understanding – Focus your attention on understanding the meaning behind what people are saying. There is a big difference between waiting for your turn to speak and really listening. Hear, Understand, Interpret, and then Respond.
 
Making Commitments – Be clear about what you will do. Agree on the What, By When, By Whom, and How steps. Communicate your intentions and stick to them.
 
Reliability – Do what you say you will do without fail. If circumstances have changed and it no longer makes sense to do what you said you would do, communicate back and explain why, and discuss and agree on the new steps.  Follow through over-and-over, be reliable, unfailing, dependable.
 
Trust – Trust results from the firm belief that another person can be relied upon. Trust is the result of straight talk, making sure you understand and are understood, and keeping confidences as well as commitments.
 
Respect – Although there are many levels of respect, the respect that follows trust leads to deep esteem for another person. We value their thoughts and input, and we know we can count on them because they have proven themselves out to us.

By Mike Griffiths

“Since helping define DSDM in 1994, I have spent the last 14 years helping organizations adopt agile methods like DSDM, Scrum, XP, FDD, etc and have come to realize, like many others, that these methods are not the solution. Instead they are the over-simplified starting points that you need to blend into what already works within the organization. Then overlay and support with additional approaches to create successful project ecosystems.

We need simplified schematics of systems to assist comprehension and discussion. However, all too often these simplified models are put into production as the entire solution and then problems occur.  Like a simplified model of a car braking system, it is useful in helping us understand how the system works in theory, yet is full of design flaws for practical implementation.

In real life, servo’s and pumps are needed to amplify the braking force from the pedal. There is not a single shared-fluid system, but instead two diagonally opposed systems (so a leak does not result in total brake failure or pulling to one side in a left and right split system). In addition to the basic system shown here, cars also employ an array of supporting systems for fluid level monitoring, ABS, wear detection, etc.

Luckily people do not read about the basics of car braking systems and then decide to replace the one on their car with their own design. However plenty of people read about agile methods and decide to implement that as their new software production system.

The good news is that the state of existing software production systems is often very poor and so implementing any kind of better conceived system is an improvement. (A basic sub-optimal braking system is probably better than relying on throwing an anchor out the window and hoping it snags on something to stop you!) The problems occur when the current system is not optimal, but understood and working; and it is then replaced by an oversimplified alternative.”

By Mike Griffiths

• Collaborative / effective communicator
• Willing to cross boundaries
• Work side by side / discuss work out problems real time
• A lot of face to face communication required
• Humility – accept feedback
• Able to compromise / support team decisions
• Able to reflect back on events and provide insights (critical for retrospectives)
• Always looking to improve
• Think about things rather than blinding moving forward…..
• Pragmatic – Knows what “just” enough is, Do what it takes
• Adaptive / Flexible – Change direction as required
• Takes initiative / self motivated
• Willing to try new things (may be evident by a desire for continuous learning)
• Can figure out the most important thing to do next. Doesn’t need to be told what to do.
• Risk tolerant – able to make a decision and act based on the information known
• Able to work in fast pace / intense
• Willing to work in a team room – little privacy, very noisy, no prestige
• Can challenge ideas in a respectful manner
• Work incrementally – Willing to revisit work
• Accepting that the big picture will evolve over time

How to detect these characteristics:

• Behavioural descriptive questions – tell me a time when….give me an example of….
• Interests / desires may be evidence of the characteristics
• Informal references from prior projects / peers etc.
• Auditions – pairing on an activity
• Trial periods

Taken from Calgary APLN

Tip #1   Distinguish between estimates, targets, and commitments.

Tip #2   When you’re asked to provide an estimate, determine whether you’re supposed to be estimating or figuring out how to hit a target.

Tip #3   When you see a single-point “estimate,” ask whether the number is an estimate or whether it’s  really a target.

Tip #4   When you see a single-point estimate, that number’s probability is not 100%. Ask what the  probability of that number is.

Tip #5   Don’t provide “percentage confident” estimates (especially “90% confident”) unless you have a quantitatively derived basis for doing so.

Tip #6   Avoid using artificially narrow ranges. Be sure the ranges you use in your estimates don’t  misrepresent your confidence in your estimates.

Tip #7   If you are feeling pressure to make your ranges narrower, verify that the pressure actually is coming from an external source and not from yourself.

Tip #8   Don’t intentionally underestimate. The penalty for underestimation is more severe than the  penalty for overestimation. Address concerns about overestimation through planning and control, not by biasing your estimates.

Tip #9   Recognize a mismatch between a project’s business target and a project’s estimate for what it is:  valuable risk information that the project might not be successful. Take corrective action early,  when it can do some good.

Tip #10   Many businesses value predictability more than development time, cost, or flexibility. Be sure  you understand what your business values the most.

Tip #11   Consider the effect of the Cone of Uncertainty on the accuracy of your estimate. Your estimate cannot have more accuracy than is possible at your project’s current position within the Cone.

Tip #12   Don’t assume that the Cone of Uncertainty will narrow itself. You must force the Cone to narrow by removing sources of variability from your project.

Tip #13   Account for the Cone of Uncertainty by using predefined uncertainty ranges in your estimates.

Tip #14   Account for the Cone of Uncertainty by having one person create the “how much” part of the estimate and a different person create the “how uncertain” part of the estimate.

Tip #15   Don’t expect better estimation practices alone to provide more accurate estimates for chaotic projects. You can’t accurately estimate an out-of-control process.

Tip #16   To deal with unstable requirements, consider project control strategies instead of or in addition to estimation strategies.

Tip #17   Include time in your estimates for stated requirements, implied requirements, and nonfunctional requirements – that is, all requirements. Nothing can be built for free, and your estimates shouldn’t imply that it can.

Tip #18   Include all necessary software-development activities in your estimates, not just coding and testing.

Tip #19   On projects that last longer than a few weeks, include allowances for overhead activities such as vacations, sick days, training days, and company meetings.

Tip #20   Don’t reduce developer estimates – they’re probably too optimistic already.

Tip #21   Avoid having “control knobs” on your estimates. While control knobs might give you a feeling of  better accuracy, they usually introduce subjectivity and degrade actual accuracy.

Tip #22   Don’t give off-the-cuff estimates. Even a 15-minute estimate will be more accurate.

Tip #23   Match the number of significant digits in your estimate (its precision) to your estimate’s accuracy.

Tip #24   Invest an appropriate amount of effort assessing the size of the software that will be built. The  size of the software is the single most significant contributor to project effort and schedule.

Tip #25   Don’t assume that effort scales up linearly as project size does. Effort scales up exponentially.

Tip #26   Use software estimation tools to compute the impact of diseconomies of scale.

Tip #27   If you’ve completed previous projects that are about the same size as the project you’re  estimating – defined as being within a factor of 3 from largest to smallest – you can safely use a ratio-based estimating approach, such as lines of code per staff month, to estimate your new project.

Tip #28   Factor the kind of software you develop into your estimate. The kind of software you’re developing is the second-most significant contributor to project effort and schedule.

Tip #29   When choosing estimation techniques, consider what you want to estimate, the size of the project, the development stage, the project’s development style, and what accuracy you need.

Tip #30   Count if at all possible. Compute when you can’t count. Use judgment alone only as a last resort.

Tip #31   Look for something you can count that is a meaningful measure of the scope of work in your environment.

Tip #32   Collect historical data that allows you to compute an estimate from a count.

Tip #33   Don’t discount the power of simple, coarse estimation models such as average effort per defect, average effort per Web page, average effort per story, and average effort per use case.

Tip #34   Avoid using expert judgment to tweak an estimate that has been derived through computation. Such “expert judgment” usually degrades the estimate’s accuracy.

Tip #35   Use historical data as the basis for your productivity assumptions. Unlike mutual fund disclosures, your organization’s past performance really is your best indicator of future performance.

Tip #36   Use historical data to help avoid politically charged estimation discussions arising from assumptions like “My team is below average.”

Tip #37   In collecting historical data to use for estimation, start small, be sure you understand what you’re collecting, and collect the data consistently.

Tip #38   Collect a project’s historical data as soon as possible after the end of the project.

Tip #39   As a project is underway, collect historical data on a periodic basis so that you can build a data-based profile of how your projects run.

Tip #40   Use data from your current project (project data) to create highly accurate estimates for the remainder of the project.

Tip #41   Use project data or historical data rather than industry-average data to calibrate your estimates whenever possible. In addition to making your estimates more accurate, historical data will reduce variability in your estimate arising from uncertainty in the productivity assumptions.

Tip #42   If you don’t currently have historical data, begin collecting it as soon as possible.

Tip #43   To create the task-level estimates, have the people who will actually do the work create the  estimates.

Tip #44   Create both Best Case and Worst Case estimates to stimulate thinking about the full range of  possible outcomes.

Tip #45   Use an estimation checklist to improve your individual estimates. Develop and maintain your own personal checklist to improve your estimation accuracy.

Tip #46   Compare actual performance to estimated performance so that you can improve your individual estimates over time.

Tip #47   Decompose large estimates into small pieces so that you can take advantage of the Law of Large Numbers: the errors on the high side and the errors on the low side cancel each other out to some degree.

Tip #48   Use a generic software-project work breakdown structure (WBS) to avoid omitting common activities.

Tip #49   Use the simple standard deviation formula to compute meaningful aggregate Best Case and Worst Case estimates for estimates containing 10 tasks or fewer.

Tip #50   Use the complex standard deviation formula to compute meaningful aggregate Best Case and Worst Case estimates when you have about 10 tasks or more.

Tip #51   Don’t divide the range from best case to worst case by 6 to obtain standard deviations for individual task estimates. Choose a divisor based on the accuracy of your estimation ranges.

Tip #52   Focus on making your Expected Case estimates accurate. If the individual estimates are accurate, aggregation will not create problems. If the individual estimates are not accurate, aggregation will be problematic until you find a way to make them accurate.

Tip #53   Estimate new projects by comparing them to similar past projects, preferably decomposing the estimate into at least five pieces.

Tip #54   Do not address estimation uncertainty by biasing the estimate. Address uncertainty by expressing the estimate in uncertain terms.

Tip #55   Use fuzzy logic to estimate program size in lines of code.

Tip #56   Consider using standard components as a low-effort technique to estimate size in a project’s early stages.

Tip #57   Use story points to obtain an early estimate of an iterative project’s effort and schedule that is based on data from the same project.

Tip #58   Exercise caution when calculating estimates that use numeric ratings scales. Be sure that the numeric categories in the scale actually work like numbers, not like verbal categories such as  small, medium, and large.

Tip #59   Use t-shirt sizing to help nontechnical stakeholders rule features in or out while the project is in the wide part of the Cone of Uncertainty.

Tip #60   Use proxy-based techniques to estimate test cases, defects, pages of user documentation, and other quantities that are difficult to estimate directly.

Tip #61   Count whatever is easiest to count and provides the most accuracy in your environment, collect  calibration data on that, and then use that data to create estimates that are well-suited to your environment.

Tip #62   Use group reviews to improve estimation accuracy.

Tip #63   Use Wideband Delphi for early-in-the-project estimates, for unfamiliar systems, and when several diverse disciplines will be involved in the project itself.

Tip #64   Use an estimation software tool to sanity-check estimates created by manual methods. Larger projects should rely more heavily on commercial estimation software.

Tip #65   Don’t treat the output of a software estimation tool as divine revelation. Sanity-check estimation tool outputs just as you would other estimates.

Tip #66   Use multiple estimation techniques, and look for convergence or spread among the results.

Tip #67   If different estimation techniques produce different results, try to find the factors that are making the results different. Continue reestimating until the different techniques produce results that converge to within about 5%.

Tip #68   If multiple estimates agree and the business target disagrees, trust the estimates.

Tip #69   Don’t debate the output of an estimate. Take the output as a given. Change the output only by changing the inputs and recomputing.

Tip #70   Focus on estimating size first. Then compute effort, schedule, cost, and features from the size estimate.

Tip #71   Reestimate.

Tip #72   Change from less accurate to more accurate estimation approaches as you work your way through a project.

Tip #73   When you are ready to hand out specific development task assignments, switch to bottom-up estimation.

Tip #74   When you reestimate in response to a missed deadline, base the new estimate on the project’s actual progress, not on the project’s planned progress.

Tip #75   Present your estimates in a way that allows you to tighten up your estimates as you move further into the project.

Tip #76   Communicate your plan to reestimate to other project stakeholders in advance.

Tip #77   Develop a Standardized Estimation Procedure at the organizational level; use it at the project level.

Tip #78   Coordinate your Standardized Estimation Procedure with your SDLC.

Tip #79   Review your projects’ estimates and estimation process so that you can improve the accuracy of  your estimates and minimize the effort required to create them.

Tip #80   Use lines of code to estimate size, but remember both the general limitations of simple measures and the specific hazards of the LOC  measure in.

Tip #81   Count function points to obtain an accurate early-in-the-project size estimate.

Tip #82   Use the Dutch Method of counting function points to attain a low-cost ballpark estimate early in the project.

Tip #83   Use GUI elements to obtain a low-effort ballpark estimate in the wide part of the Cone of Uncertainty.

Tip #84   With better estimation methods, the size estimate becomes the foundation of all other estimates. The size of the system you’re building is the single largest cost driver. Use multiple size-estimation techniques to make your size estimate accurate.

Tip #85   Use software tools based on the science of estimation to most accurately compute effort estimates from your size estimates.

Tip #86   Use industry-average effort graphs to obtain rough effort estimates in the wide part of the Cone of Uncertainty. For larger projects, remember that more powerful estimation techniques are easily cost-justified.

Tip #87   Use the ISBSG method to compute a rough effort estimate. Combine it with other methods, and look for convergence or spread among the different estimates.

Tip #88   Not all estimation methods are equal. When  looking for convergence or spread among estimates, give more weight to the techniques that tend to produce the most accurate results.

Tip #89   Use the Basic Schedule Equation to estimate schedule early in medium-to-large projects.

Tip #90   Use the Informal Comparison to Past Projects formula to estimate schedule early in a small-to-large project.

Tip #91   Use Jones’s First-Order Estimation Practice to produce a low-accuracy (but very low-effort) schedule estimate early in a project.

Tip #92   Do not shorten a schedule estimate without increasing the effort estimate.

Tip #93   Do not shorten a nominal schedule more than 25%. In other words, keep your estimates out of the Impossible Zone.

Tip #94   Reduce costs by lengthening the schedule and conducting the project with a smaller team.

Tip #95   For medium-sized business-systems projects (35,000 to 100,000 lines of code) avoid increasing the team size beyond 7 people.

Tip #96   Use schedule estimation to ensure your plans are plausible. Use detailed planning to produce the final schedule.

Tip #97   Remove the results of overly generic estimation techniques from your data set before you look  for convergence or spread among your estimates.

Tip #98   When allocating project effort across different activities, consider project size, project type, and the kinds of effort contained in the calibration data used to create your initial rolled-up estimate.

Tip #99   Consider your project’s size, type, and development approach in allocating schedule to different  activities.

Tip #100   Use industry-average data or your historical data to estimate the number of defects your project will produce.

Tip #101   Use defect-removal-rate data to estimate the number of defects that your quality assurance practices will remove from your software before it is released.

Tip #102   Use your project’s total Risk Exposure (RE) as the starting point for buffer planning. Review the details of your project’s specific risks to understand whether you should ultimately plan for a buffer that’s larger or smaller than the total RE.

Tip #103   Planning and estimation are related, and planning is a much bigger topic than can be addressed in one chapter in a book that focuses on software estimation. Read the literature on  planning.

Tip #104   Document and communicate the assumptions embedded in your estimate.

Tip #105   Be sure you understand whether you’re presenting uncertainty in an estimate or uncertainty that affects your ability to meet a commitment.

Tip #106   Don’t present project outcomes to other project stakeholders that are only remotely possible.

Tip #107   Consider graphic presentation of your estimate as an alternative to text presentation.

Tip #108   Use an estimate presentation style that reinforces the message you want to communicate about your estimate’s accuracy.

Tip #109   Don’t try to express a commitment as a range. A commitment needs to be specific.

Tip #110   Understand that executives are assertive by nature and by job description, and plan your estimation discussions accordingly.

Tip #111   Be aware of external influences on the target. Communicate that you understand the business  requirements and their importance.

Tip #112   You can negotiate the commitment, but don’t negotiate the estimate.

Tip #113   Educate nontechnical stakeholders about effective software estimation practices.

Tip #114   Treat estimation discussions as problem solving, not negotiation. Recognize that all project stakeholders are on the same side of the table. Everyone wins, or everyone loses.

Tip #115   Attack the problem, not the people.

Tip #116   Generate as many planning options as you can to support your organization’s goals.

Tip #117   As you foster an atmosphere of collaborative problem solving, don’t make any commitments based on off-the-cuff estimates.

Tip #118   Resolve discussion deadlocks by returning to the question of, “What will be best for our organization?”

From Software Estimation by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press, 2006)

The following sanity check indicates how useful your current project estimate is likely to be in managing your project. For each Yes answer, give the estimate one point.

1. Was a standardized procedure used to create the estimate?

2. Was the estimation process free from pressure that would bias the results?

3. If the estimate was negotiated, were only the inputs to the estimate negotiated, not the outputs or  the estimation process itself?

4. Is the estimate expressed with precision that matches its accuracy? (For example, is the estimate expressed as a range or coarse number if it’s early in the project?)

5. Was the estimate created using multiple techniques that converged to similar results?

6. Is the productivity assumption underlying the estimate comparable to productivity actually  experienced on past projects of similar sizes?

7. Is the estimated schedule at least 2.0 x StaffMonths1/3? (That is, is the estimate outside of the  Impossible Zone?)

8. Were the people who are going to do the work involved in creating the estimate?

9. Has the estimate been reviewed by an expert estimator?

10. Does the estimate include a nonzero allowance for the impact that project risks will have on effort and schedule?

11. Is the estimate part of a series of estimates that will become more accurate as the project moves into the narrow part of the cone of uncertainty?

12. Are all elements of the project included in the estimate, including creation of setup program,  creation of data conversion utilities, cutover from old system to new system, etc.?

This Estimate Sanity Check is from Software Estimation by Steve McConnell (Microsoft Press, 2006)

Scores of 10-12 indicate estimates that should be highly accurate.

Scores of 7-9 indicate estimates that are good enough to provide project guidance but that are probably optimistic.

Scores of 6 or below indicate estimates that are subject to significant bias, optimism, or both, and are not accurate enough to provide meaningful guidance to managing a project.