Fact: It is almost certain, if you are half done with work activities at the half-way point of the schedule the project will be late or un-estimated man hours will be needed at the end to make the deadline.

Most people think if half the work is finished and half the scheduled has elapsed, the project must be half completed. While this sounds good, it is overly optimistic. Too often, the end of a project is a scramble of activity to get things completed on time and no matter how much planning there is to even out the pace, there’s always a sprint to the finish.

I’ll assert that what is called the half-way point is not as such. Time (schedule) is obvious, but work, or man hours, is much more difficult to gauge. If 1000 project man hours were estimated and 500 remain it would seem one could say the project is half completed, but all that can be truly said is, we’ve used half the estimated man hours.

Two common methods for projecting remaining work are using straight line calculation and a 50/50 S-curve model, but these are poor models. Let’s look at a project for a minute. The beginning usually starts slowly and work ramps ups, while the end has a lot of work going on right up until the deadline – hardly a mirror image. Neal Whitten makes a case for using a 70/50 S-curve model in which 70% of work is completed at 50% of the schedule. I agree with this model. It definitely will increase the probability of getting the project completed on time without a huge flurry at the end. This model has built in contingencies to protect the schedule thus minimizing the risk of overrun.

As the project plan and schedule are created, use the 70/50 rule. At each milestone assess progress and reevaluate what work is remaining and adjust the schedule to get 70% completed at the next schedule half-way point. Even though there may milestone deadlines that cause periods of increased workloads, this practice will spread out much of the needed work that piles up at the end of a project. Granted, some things need to be done at the end, but there will be time in the schedule to tackle this work and unknowns when they occur.