If you have already completed a PMP training course, then you should know how the schedule is managed in plan schedule management process. You also need to know how activities are ordered in sequence activities process. And what resource requirements are for activities in estimate of activity resources process. Don’t forget to include this important step in your PMP study plan if you haven’t yet started to prepare for PMP exam. These are all processes of Time Management, which is why PMP exam training covers them all. The Estimate Activity Durations process begins after these processes are completed.
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This article will explain what this process looks like. Also, see the Estimate Activity Durations Process.
What is the Estimate Activity Durations process?
This is the process of estimating how many work hours are required to complete each activity with the estimated resources. These resources then estimate the duration of each activity once they have been determined. They will need to complete the activity in a given time. Based on their estimates, the overall duration of the project will be determined.

What happens in the Estimate Activity Durations process?
The estimated time each activity will take is determined during this process. The task description and details are used to estimate the duration of each activity. The assignee of each activity estimates the duration of each activity in a similar way.
If there are any ambiguities or unclear points regarding an activity, padding will be added to the estimation. Let’s first understand what padding is.

What is Padding?
Pad refers to extra time or additional cost that is added to an estimate when the estimator doesn’t have enough information about the activity. Project resources base their estimates on current information during this process. If there isn’t enough information or risks that could cause the activity to take more time, this will be used for padding during estimation.
The project manager should make every activity as clear and precise as possible in order to make accurate estimates during the estimation of activity durations. Risks can be eliminated as much possible. To get a better estimate of project resources, it is important to clarify any unclear points or missing information.

Even though the project manager attempts to eliminate all risks, there may still be risks that need to be considered. If a pad is required, risk management should be taken into consideration. Risk management activities are used to plan for reserves to cover any potential risks. If everything goes according to plan, the project resource must only consider the duration of the activity.
Example of a process to estimate the duration of activity
This process can use many techniques. In most cases, one technique is used for all duration estimations of activities in a project.

Your entry was not saved. Please try again. We have sent you links! You should have already received an email from masterofproject.com. If you have not received an email from us, please check your spam folders. You can also add masterofproject.com on your safe senders list to ensure you receive our emails. We used PERT analysis Beta Distribution in our Estimate Activity Durations example.
As you can see, the estimator gives us estimates of the most likely activity duration for each activity. These optimistic, pessimistic, and most likely values are substituted in the beta distribution formula for PERT analysis.
For analysis of invoice screen, the estimated activity duration is 8.67 days.
The estimated activity duration for the design and production of an invoice screen is 7.50 business days.
Estimated time of activity for the development