With over 45 years of experience in the software estimation field, you might say we know a thing or two about the subject.  This is why we wanted to define key principles with our Software Estimation Basics series. Let's start with a common question we hear a lot: what is a top-down estimate?

What Is Top-Down Estimation?

Top-down estimation is a technique that uses high-level, summary project goals or constraints - scope, cost, schedule, resources, and productivity - to evaluate all possible scenarios to meet a project's goals and the risks associated with each scenario.  Top-down estimation is the best approach to employ early in the project and project portfolio planning process when very little is known.

A common misconception about top-down estimation is that it is used solely to produce a ballpark figure for cost. As we'll explain more in this post, good top-down estimates calculate values for key management metrics, not just cost.

A top-down estimate can be generated by anyone who needs to know a software project's budget, schedule, or staffing - project managers, anyone in the PMO, technical architects, cost analysts, and product owners. C-suite executives can leverage top-down estimates when they need to approve project budgets and schedules.

Software development has always been challenging.  In the digital age, where every company is a technology company, successful business outcomes depend on successful software project outcomes.  A well-designed, flexible software process improvement plan is critical to getting the right technology, people, and practices in sync and delivering at the highest level.

This in-depth guide will teach you everything you need to know about software processes improvement. You will learn critical strategies, like:

• how to to build practices that align with organization strategies,
• how to promote efficiency and quality,
• and how to adapt to business and technology innovation.

Written by industry expert Laura Zuber, this guide shares a wealth of knowledge from Laura's 28 years of experience in software development consulting and early adoption of Capability Maturity Model (CMM) guidelines. Implementing these best practices will help you achieve process maturity at your organization.

Read the guide!

If you were unable to attend our recent webinar, "Making Better IT Cost & Scope Decisions with Top-Down Estimation," a replay is now available.

This year thousands of software, cloud migration, and IT development managers will spend long hours developing very detailed, bottom-up plans. Unfortunately, many of these plans will be unreliable, because they don't take into account the big picture. Generating top-down estimates, before detailed planning occurs, allow managers to see the overall development and delivery targets for cost and scope. This allows for managing project expectations and even negotiation before work gets underway.

This presentation includes a Q&A session with the audience and covers such topics as:

• How to generate top-down estimates early in the decision-making process
• Best practices for IT estimation
• How to leverage historical data to improve estimation

Keith Ciocco has more than 30 years of experience working in sales and customer service, with 25 of those years spent with QSM. As Vice President, his primary responsibilities include supporting QSM clients with their estimation and measurement goals, managing business development and existing client relations. He has developed and directed the implementation of the sales and customer retention process within QSM and has played a leading role in communicating the value of the QSM tools and services to professionals in the software development, engineering and IT industries.  

Register now to reserve your spot for this webinar presented by Keith Ciocco on Sept. 15th at 1 PM EDT.

This year thousands of software, cloud migration, and IT development managers will spend long hours developing very detailed, bottom-up plans. Unfortunately, many of these plans will be unreliable, because they don't take into account the big picture. Generating top-down estimates, before detailed planning occurs, allow managers to see the overall development and delivery targets for cost and scope. This allows for managing project expectations and even negotiation before work gets underway.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to generate top-down estimates early in the decision-making process
• Best practices for IT estimation
• How to leverage historical data to improve estimation

About the presenter:

When a project goes over schedule, costs too much money, or doesn’t deliver the desired functionality, business leaders may wonder what could have been done differently. Why not ask a professional estimator? Often, these are the people holding the crystal ball - those charged with planning and assessing the project before it even gets off the ground.

We recently polled our own seasoned estimation experts at QSM to find out their thoughts. With many years of forecasting, tracking, and benchmarking software projects under their collective belts, everyone from our consultants to our support and sales teams chimed in to compile a list of what estimators consider to be the most critical software development management issues. In this article, Don Beckett shares these lessons learned (and methods to solve them), which are invaluable to both project managers and C-level business leaders alike.

Read the full article!

If you were unable to attend our recent webinar, "How to Estimate Reliability for On-Time Software Development," a replay is now available.

Software development is a major investment area for thousands of organizations worldwide. The negotiation and early planning meetings often revolve around major cost and schedule decisions. But one of the most important factors, reliability, often gets left behind in these early discussions. This is unfortunate since early reliability estimates can help ensure that a quality product is delivered and predict if it will finish on-time and within budget. In this webinar, Keith Ciocco shows how to leverage the QSM model-based tools to estimate and track the important reliability numbers along with cost, scope, and schedule.

This presentation includes a lively Q&A session with the audience and covers such topics as:

On Wednesday, Dec. 8 at 1:00 PM EST, Keith Ciocco will present "How to Estimate Reliability for On-Time Software Development."

Software development is a major investment area for thousands of organizations worldwide. The negotiation and early planning meetings often revolve around major cost and schedule decisions. But one of the most important factors, reliability, often gets left behind in these early discussions. This is unfortunate since early reliability estimates can help ensure that a quality product is delivered and predict if it will finish on-time and within budget. In this webinar, Keith Ciocco will be showing how to leverage the QSM model-based tools to estimate and track the important reliability numbers along with cost, scope, and schedule.

Keith Ciocco has more than 30 years of experience working in sales and customer service, with 25 of those years spent with QSM. As Vice President, his primary responsibilities include supporting QSM clients with their estimation and measurement goals, managing business development and existing client relations. He has developed and directed the implementation of the sales and customer retention process within QSM and has played a leading role in communicating the value of the QSM tools and services to professionals in the software development, engineering and IT industries.      

Register now!

If you were unable to attend our recent webinar highlighting the pioneering measurement work by Larry Putnam, Sr. and how it applies to today's estimation challenges, a replay is now available.

QSM was deeply saddened by the passing of our founder, Larry Putnam, Sr. just a few months ago. Larry's left behind a 40 year legacy in the software estimation and measurement field. His models were the basis for our SLIM-Suite of tools and many of his discoveries about the behavior of software projects still hold true today. In this webinar, his son and QSM Co-CEO Larry Putnam, Jr. reviews Larry Putnam, Sr.'s original research and the data it was based on. He then explores if that original research continues to stand the test of time when compared with data derived from modern development approaches. He also shows how modern agile development practices exploit some of the laws Larry discovered over 40 years ago. Finally, he discusses the role of estimation in today’s increasingly agile world.

Watch the replay!

On Wednesday, Nov. 3 at 1:00 PM EDT, Larry Putnam, Jr. will present "Larry Putnam, Sr.'s Legacy and Understanding the Physics of Software Projects."

QSM was deeply saddened by the passing of our founder, Larry Putnam, Sr. just a few months ago. Larry's left behind a 40 year legacy in the software estimation and measurement field. His models were the basis for our SLIM-Suite of tools and many of his discoveries about the behavior of software projects still hold true today. In this webinar, his son and QSM Co-CEO Larry Putnam, Jr. reviews Larry Putnam, Sr.'s original research and the data it was based on. He then explores if that original research continues to stand the test of time when compared with data derived from modern development approaches. He also shows how modern agile development practices exploit some of the laws Larry discovered over 40 years ago. Finally, he discusses the role of estimation in today’s increasingly agile world.

Register now!

If you were unable to attend our recent webinar, "Critical Cost & Schedule Target Setting with Data-Driven Estimation," a replay is now available.

It might come as no surprise that technology organizations will spend millions of dollars this year on agile and traditional development programs. But did you know that many will lose big money and time because they don’t have an effective way to establish and negotiate reasonable cost, schedule, and quality targets? In this webinar, Keith Ciocco demonstrates how we use the QSM estimation tools to manage these major challenges and the uncertainty that can come with very early critical planning decisions.

Watch the replay!