2. The analogical method: what answers can it provide when little project data is available?

Here are just a few of the questions the project manager has to answer right from the start of the project, when all he or she has received as a "brief" - or at best, as verbal instructions - is enough to fill half a page of A4 :

• from the industrial manager: "What will the production cost be?

• Purchasing manager: "What volume of purchases should we plan for during the production phase?

• from the marketing manager and, possibly, the customer: "what will be the selling price of the product (and/or service)?

One of the aims of the analysis phase is to frame the answer to these economic questions, and of the conceptualization phase to specify it.

But in the absence of reliable data on the product or service under study,...