New publication:

Practical application and empirical evaluation of reference class forecasting for project management

In our most recent publication in the Project Management Journal, we have used the well-known reference class forecasting methodology to predict the time and cost of a project. Reference class forecasting is a method of predicting the future by looking at similar past situations and their outcomes.

Abstract: Traditionally, project managers produce cost and time forecasts by predicting the future course of specific events. In contrast, reference class forecasting (RCF) bypasses human judgment by basing forecasts on the actual outcomes of past projects similar to the project being forecasted. The RCF tech- nique is compared with the most common traditional project forecasting methods, such as those based on Monte Carlo simulation and earned value management (EVM). The conducted evaluation is entirely based on real-life project data and shows that RCF indeed performs best, for both cost and time forecasting, and therefore supports the prac- tical relevance of the technique.

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Cite as: Batselier, J. and Vanhoucke, M., 2016, "Practical application and empirical evaluation of reference class forecasting for project management", Project Management Journal, 47(5), 36–51.

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