How to use Hill Charts to stop stakeholders freaking out about uncertainty on scope and estimates

We’ve all been burnt by project uncertainty, particularly in the early days of a project. It’s never a good look when you deliver an estimate and the estimate continues to grow, week after week, month after month. Your stakeholders question if you know what you’re really doing and “why isn’t someone managing this project”. But the hard fact is that there is uncertainty in scope and estimates and that uncertainty can be particularly acute at the start of a project.

Let me show you a technique I use to communicate the level of uncertainty in estimates, that in my experience, calms stakeholders down and makes the journey smoother.

I first came across 37 signals’ Hill Charts two years ago when I was Global Head of Portfolio & Programmes for a global software company. I’ve been a fan of 37 Signals for a long time. Their ways of working have always resonated well with me and Hill Charts is another “knock it out the park” idea they had.

What is a Hill Chart

A Hill Chart is a graphical representation of how much uncertainty there is in your major scope items and how they are progressing to delivery.

The up-hill (left hand) side of the chart represents scope items where we’re still figuring things out. Maybe the actual detail is not fully understood yet, or the scope hasn’t been broken down into actual tasks, or someone who requested the feature is being a little hard to pin down exactly what they’re after. As we crest the top of the hill, we fully understand what is required and have confidence in our estimate. Going downhill (right hand side) is easy - we know what we need to do and we are simply recording progress against that.

The size of the circles on the chart - my own little refinement on the original Hill Chart - represents the size of the scope item.

Getting to Certainty

For items on the left of the chart, estimates on scope are particularly uncertain.

I’m always happy to share estimates with stakeholders for items on the left, but they can see how far away from certain (how far away from the top of the hill) those scope items are. If one of those scope items grows as it progresses up the hill, I’ve already laid the groundwork that this might happen and the stakeholder is not surprised. If I uncover a lot more effort on a scope item than original expected, I might even move a scope item further left, representing the struggle of really understanding what is involved in this piece of work, as it slips back down the hill. I also find this graphic quickly shifts the conversation to things like “What can we do to accelerate the path up the hill and get more certainty about our scope”.

In my experience, this technique has also led to stakeholders questioning why something needs to be in scope.

Managing From Certainty

It’s all downhill from here and we all know that going downhill is easier.

When an item crests the top of the hill, the baseline is set for this scope item. The team have good visibility of what is required, a good understanding of the tasks and effort involved. These are the items that I educate stakeholders they are welcome to expect certainty from. On a project, which is often an uncertain endeavour, stakeholders crave for some certainty and putting a mark in the sand when this happens both improves the Project Manager’s credibility, but also encourages stakeholders to support getting the rest of the scope items to the top of the hill as smoothly as possible.

Managing uncertainty on projects is easier if you manage stakeholders expectations on uncertainty.

Hill Charts are a visual aid to exploring uncertainty that also change the conversation from blaming the Project Manager for not managing the project well, to supporting the Project Manager.