Often different tasks have to be synchronized. This is valid for your own activities, which you would like to achieve within a day and for those, which are delegated to employees or a project team. Once in the year, for example, the goals must be agreed in the context of the performance agreement. They depend indirectly on the expenses that are estimated with more or less extensive calculations. The first hurdle for all is the evaluation with the rule of thumb.

The following procedure can be done in a little while and gives a fast estimation or comparative figures for later, more exact calculations.

• Attunement
  For the preparation you gather mentally the components and influences. This can be done based on personal experiences or, if possible, through concrete literature and Internet searches. The result consists of the roughly structured, functional tasks and results that are used for the respective purpose.
• Estimation
  By imagining the overview of the scope, you think about the capacities, the resources and the time that are required, in order to get to the desired result. As a reference you use your experiences as well as results of similar projects.
• Evaluation
  The estimations are examined concerning their consistence. This is done without extensive and detailed calculations, but by listening to your gut feeling. If no discrepancies evolve, the existing assumptions seem to fit.
• Correction
  If the gut feeling gives a negative feedback, you adapts the respective estimations and repeat the assessment, until you feel no more discrepancies.
• Application
  The results can be used in different contexts. You use this procedure in a meeting, in order to estimate and comment figures that are presented. On this basis, you can also develop planning of projects and tasks as well as for extensive calculations, in order to receive detailed estimations.

These steps do not replace the usual estimation of expenses, but they are a fast path to overlook the orders of magnitude for task execution and the production of results. Within shortest time of reflection, you receive a rough feeling for what your plans, the assignment of tasks or for the evaluation of expense estimations of a project.

Bottom line: Eventually, all expense estimations are predictions, since they are based on incomplete and uncertain information. The approach from above guarantees that you have the correct scope and the best possible key figures in mind. Complex calculations do not change the fact of a prophecy, since they are always based on assumed figures. It is a fast, although rough, possibility to make forecasts. No matter, how extensively the concluding estimation is done, you always need a reference that allows checking the reliability of the calculation. Thus, the first hurdle for all is the estimation based on rule of thumb.