The QSM team had a productive trip to the Gartner Symposium in Orlando. It's always helpful for us to discuss IT current trends and challenges with the people in our industry. Many of these themes came to light as we provided SLIM-Suite product demonstrations along with question and answer sessions at the QSM exhibit.

One of the big areas of interest at the conference was IT cost optimization, which is also one of QSM’s main areas of expertise. I hosted a presentation called “Cost Optimization Best Practices for IT Portfolio Budgeting.” The main focus of the presentation was to show how we can leverage empirically-based models and predictive analytics to balance enterprise demand with capacity and at the same time save big money in the IT budgeting process. The presentation was well-attended and a meet and greet session followed where our QSM team, consisting of Ethan Avery, Richard Pelaez, Greta Moen, and I, provided solution demonstrations and answered questions.

Another big focus of the conference was related to cloud solutions and how they will affect the internet of things and artificial intelligence. Our team featured our cloud solution, SLIM-Collaborate, which provides portfolio analytics and the ability to estimate the cost and risk of creating new software technologies. We provided examples of how we support all types of software & systems projects and explained the benefits of having a secure process for leveraging this information across the enterprise.

QSM is pleased to announce Keith Ciocco will be presenting "Cost Optimization for IT Portfolio Budgeting" on Monday, October 2 at 6:10 PM on the Emerging Technologies Stage at the upcoming Gartner Symposium/ITXpo. This presentation will highlight cost optimization techniques in the annual IT budgeting process. Instead of relying upon detailed task-based spreadsheets and wild guesses, attendees will learn how to leverage historical data and predictive modeling for more accurate and cost-effective IT budgeting.

Additionally, QSM will be exhibiting SLIM tools and consulting services in the Emerging Technologies Area. Stop by booth ET14 to get a live demo and learn more about our IT budgeting and demand management solutions.

We are pleased to announce that QSM Lead Trainer and Senior Consultant Pam Simonovich will be presenting a workshop focused on applying function point rules to emerging technologies at the upcoming ISMA 14 on September 13. She will also be giving away VR Elegiant Virtual Reality Glasses to one lucky participant!

Today’s sizing expert must be able to accurately apply function point counting rules and SNAP counting rules to a variety of software environments and technologies. This hands-on interactive workshop will prepare you to apply counting rules to the ever-popular gaming Industry and promises to include such technologies as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Cloud computing, etc. The contents of the course will be reinforced with examples and hands-on case studies.

The workshop schedule will be as follows:

QSM is pleased to announce the release of SLIM-Suite 10.0, the latest version of our flagship software estimation, tracking, and benchmarking suite of tools.  With new quadrant chart visualization features, the updated version of the SLIM-Suite allows users to gain visibility into multiple projects at once and, as a result, easily identify high-risk projects, improve demand management, and address project feasibility issues early in the process. Additionally, users can now map staff capacity to portfolio demand to ensure that development resources are utilized across projects and available when needed.

In addition to the new visual capabilities, highlights of SLIM-Suite 10.0 include:

• Updated 2017 industry trends: Estimates now leverage the latest project data from 2017 to provide better metrics for more accurate portfolio planning.  
• New skills aggregation capabilities: This new feature expands upon the existing functionality to include detailed breakouts of effort, staffing, and cost by skill by month for subsystem tasks beyond Excel to include custom and SLIM-Control tasks in addition to SLIM-Estimate tasks.
• Better database management features: SLIM-Suite 10.0 allows easier detection of duplicate projects and improved data importing capabilities. 

“We designed SLIM 10.0 to make it easier for project managers to estimate projects, understand which projects are at risk and share this information within their organizations,” said Doug Putnam, Co-CEO for QSM. “SLIM’s new visualization tools make it possible to see an entire project portfolio at a glance, which we believe will lead to improved project success for our customers.”

The QSM team thoroughly enjoyed our time at the Gartner Symposium/ITXPO in Orlando a couple of weeks ago. We spent most of our time at the QSM exhibit, networking sessions, and at various presentation sessions.

We met many C-Level executives with process improvement on their mind. Our main focus was to learn about their specific needs in the IT budgeting and vendor management areas. We conducted question and answer sessions and provided real world examples on how to use business and software analytics to manage the complexities of IT budgeting, taking into account in-house projects as well as the project durations and costs proposed by their vendors.

Many of the senior executives we spoke with also had a need to integrate cost, duration and resource information with their project portfolio management solutions. The big focus was leveraging demand management to improve capacity planning. We provided demonstrations showing the SLIM-PPM Integration Framework which provides the release level cost, effort, resources and schedules that PPM solutions need validated to reduce risk in the enterprise portfolio.

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016
16 - 20 October 2016 | Orlando, FL
gartner.com/us/symposium

Thinking about attending the upcoming Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016, October 16 – 20, in Orlando, FL? As a sponsor, we’d like to invite you to see a demonstration of our SLIM Suite project estimation and business analytics solution at the Solution Showcase. Stop by QSM booth #1056 and enter our drawing to win a free “Quick-look IT Budgeting Maturity Assessment” - a $5000 value. 

All CIOs and IT leaders have unique goals and challenges around two key areas: aligning to their CEOs' business priorities and advancing their careers, digital roadmaps and organizational influence. Gartner Symposium/ITxpo helps you address both, with a flexible, accessible agenda mapped to your top priorities and anchored in three key areas: Technology and Information, Leadership and Business Strategy. From future trends to surprising revelations about what global CIOs really think, you'll hear it first at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo - directly from the experts who devote their careers to exploring what's over the horizon. 

Register now with priority code SPSYM189 and save $550 off the standard registration rate.

Our team has been working hard to make sure we’re making your job as a project manager, estimator or company executive as easy as possible. QSM is more than an estimation company, providing predictive analytics to support fact-based decisions and realistic resource demand predictions for enterprise level capacity planning. This means that no matter where you are with your project or portfolio, you can find the information you need quickly and easily.    

So, as you may have noticed when you came to our site today, things are looking a little bit different, as we’ve rolled out our new and improved website! Our hope is that you’ll find it incredibly easy to navigate. If you aren’t exactly sure where to start, right on the home page you can now select a starting point by clicking on any of the following buttons:

• New to QSM
• Familiar with QSM
• QSM for Government

At a quick glance of the homepage, you can also now get a brief overview of QSM and the industries we serve, and access our blog, news, and client list. 

One of our primary goals for the new site is to help each and every visitor understand the problems we solve, so they can better serve the companies, organizations and government agencies they work for.  This new drop down menu includes the following:

QSM is pleased to announce we have recently been selected as one of the 20 Most Promising Productivity Tools Solution Providers by CIO Review. In the last few months, CIO Review has analyzed hundreds of productivity tools solution providers and shortlisted the companies that are at the forefront of tackling challenges in the arena. A distinguished panel comprising of CEOs, CIOs and analysts including CIO Review’s editorial board has selected the final list of Productivity Tools Solution Provider of 2015. In their selection process, they looked at the vendor’s capability to fulfill the need for cost-effective and flexible solutions that add value to the productivity tools landscape.

QSM establishes a productivity baseline for its customers’ projects, identifying immediate opportunities for improvement, while providing the ability to measure the return-on-investment (ROI) once those improvements have been implemented. QSM's Software Lifecycle Management (SLIM) tools support better decision making at each stage of the project development lifecycle.

Read the full report.

QSM is pleased to announce the release of a new book, Understanding Software Estimation, Negotiation, and Demand Management: An Executive Primer. Historically, only 20% of software projects are completed successfully and with software becoming critical to nearly every company and industry, having such a high rate of failure is simply unacceptable anymore. It is for this reason that QSM has compiled this collection of articles that will aid anyone from project managers to CIOs in implementing software estimation, negotiation and demand management methods efficiently to reduce costs.

Larry Putnam, Sr., founder of QSM and a pioneer and top problem solver in the software estimation and measurement field, provides the foreword to the book, which is co-authored by his son and granddaughter, Doug Putnam and Taylor Putnam-Majarian. Combined, the authors bring more than 40 years of experience in software measurement to a range of topics, including:

Industry expert Phillip Armour highlights the importance of the QSM Software Almanac: 2014 Research Edition in his recent article for Communications of the ACM.

Software projects can be so complicated and so different from each other that predicting whether they will succeed or fail can be as difficult as forecasting the weather or picking winning stocks. Will the project entirely fulfill its goals? Will it deliver some value at a higher cost or later than desired? Or will it just crash and burn leaving the exhausted survivors to lick their wounds, bury the dead bodies, and shred the evidence?

Courageous efforts are being made to collect and codify the data that is available, to try to spot what trends are occurring in the industry, and to provide some useful guidelines for managing the business of software. The recently published QSM Software Almanac, dubbed the "2014 Research Edition," is an example of this.

Read the full article!