In most organizations, spreadsheets play a vital role for a variety of uses, from time keeping to budgeting to even estimating software development releases.  They offer a level of familiarity - most of us cut our technical teeth on spreadsheets from a young age and have grown with them as we advanced our careers.  When it comes to estimating software development, spreadsheets are a common “go-to,” but an estimation tool offers more flexibility, timely “what-if” changes and far less complexity for new and seasoned estimators alike.

Have you ever been in an organization in which the estimation spreadsheet was so complex and cumbersome that only a select few knew how to use it?  This leaves an organization vulnerable to perhaps a single link of institutional knowledge upon which they are making vital business decisions.  And if that one project manager, analyst or architect leaves the organization, switches roles, or retires, what then?  Even if they go on vacation for 2 weeks, you’re left with a spreadsheet that may have an impossible learning curve for anyone else hence delaying or possibly negating the estimates being created at all.

In talking with many organizations about their IT estimation practices over the years, I’ve noticed a recurring theme has been their self-perception of immaturity when addressing the use of a commercial estimating tool. Estimates in the workforce are typically generated via the Delphi method, multi-tabbed spreadsheets, and uncalibrated guesses.  When recommending a top-down tool approach, the feedback can be: “we aren’t mature enough to use a tool or model.” 

I’ve actually seen the opposite.  The top-down approach offers an on-ramp to more formal estimating by its very nature of needing few inputs, rather than the myriad of cells, rows, and columns required to be populated in a spreadsheet.  A top-down tool approach leads us away from relying on the institutional knowledge of a few people that may have relevant experience, but one day may retire or move on from the organization taking that knowledge -with them.  Also, a parametric top-down approach leveraging relevant historical data is much better than a wet thumb in the air.

In agile development, it's not unusual for software teams to have a fixed schedule or budget before any work begins. This is great information for stakeholders, but what if those targets are unrealistic? What if there were a way to evaluate trade-offs early in the decision-making process, before any detailed planning occurs?

With a top-down estimation tool like QSM's SLIM-Estimate, your scrum teams can quickly determine how much functionality they can deliver in a planned release schedule. If that target schedule turns out to be unrealistic, you can leverage SLIM-Estimate's time-tested models to calculate the impact of trade-offs. What happens if you add more people to the project? If the schedule is non-negotiable, how much functionality can you deliver in that period of time? SLIM-Estimate provides you with visualizations that are powerful when presenting to senior-level management and stakeholders. Plot your estimates against relevant agile trendlines from QSM's database of over 13,000 projects (the largest of its kind) and you can see how your estimates check out against the industry.

The video above shows how to use this powerful tool to generate defensible agile estimates you can present to stakeholders early in the planning process. Having data-driven information like this at your fingertips will allow you to plan and negotiate, and maybe even avoid disaster.

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!

How large is your project?
It’s projected to cost $2,000,000.
That’s cost. not size!

How large is your project?
We believe it will take 14 months to complete.
That’s schedule, not size!

How large is your project?
It’s going to be a 25-person project.
That’s staff, not size!

Software estimators often think of project size as what a project produces (features, stories, requirements, function points, or code). These are what a project has to create or account for in order to fulfill its mission. Business leaders, understandably, are more likely to visualize project size in terms of resources expended (cost, time to market, or FTE staff).  These competing definitions of “size” can produce confusion and ambiguity. Which leads us to Tip #1.

Tip 1

Be prepared to explain to business leaders how quantifying project size (as seen by an estimator) helps business leaders get more accurate estimates of the things that matter to them: cost, schedule, quality, and staffing. I find a graphic like the one below from SLIM-Estimate can be useful to illustrate the relationship between a project’s size (primarily of interest to development staff and project managers) and the major project management metrics of interest to the C-suite.

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!

On Wednesday, September 15th at 1:00 PM Eastern, QSM will host a free webinar, "Critical Cost & Schedule Target Setting with Data-Driven Estimation."

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 will demonstrate how we use the QSM estimation tools to manage these major challenges and the uncertainty that can come with very early critical planning decisions.

Register now!