On July 14, 2015 at 1:00 PM EDT, QSM's Laura Zuber presented What's New in SLIM-Suite 9.0.

A foundation of the SLIM philosophy is to know what your team is capable of producing and never promise to deliver more than those finite limits. Leveraging a history of completed project core metrics enables you to quantify your capabilities, and not only provide a defensible basis of estimation, but support statistical analysis for project benchmarking and identifying performance improvement opportunities.

QSM's newest release of SLIM-Suite, version 9.0, provides a number of enhancements to simplify and organize completed project data in SLIM-DataManager and manage data sets definitions and queries in SLIM-Metrics. In this webinar, Laura Zuber will demonstrate key new features of both products. You will see how providing project size details, master keyword lists, multiple view layouts, and multi-select variable analysis equip you to expand your historical project repository and increase its use.

Laura Zuber has 20 years of experience in software development consulting and training. She has conducted training and demonstrations for all QSM SLIM Suite Tools and assisted with QSM Support. Laura has managed software development projects, served as a senior software process improvement specialist, performed process assessments, designed and implemented best practices, and co-lead corporate metrics training program.

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When it comes to agile, there are common myths and misconceptions about project estimation and tracking. In Part 2 of this PDU-approved two-part webinar series (which can be viewed independently or together), presented on May 28 at 1:00 PM EDT by QSM's Andy Berner offers corrections to these, such as:

• Why velocity is not a good predictor of release duration
• Why burndown charts will not be close to straight lines
• Why change and churn are not the same thing
• Why looking at just the values of metrics alone is not enough

While some longstanding principles about software estimation still apply, agile methods require some significant changes to how we estimate. This webinar shows you how to leverage the SLIM estimation and tracking tools to properly interpret metrics collected by agile teams and ensure that agile projects meet their goals. Andy Berner demonstrates how SLIM fits with the principles of agile development, and discusses milestones, productivity, project control, data collection, and look with an eye towards further research.

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When it comes to agile, there are common myths and misconceptions about estimation.  In the first of this two-part webinar series (which can be viewed independently or together), presented on April 22 at 1:00 PM EDT, QSM’s Andy Berner will offer corrections to these, such as:

• Why we still need to estimate duration on agile projects
• Why setting expectations based on scope is still important, even as we “embrace change”
• Why you still need to plan for work on requirements, even though it’s not all “upfront”

While some longstanding principles about software estimation still apply, agile methods require some significant changes to how we estimate.  This webinar will show you how to tailor the SLIM estimation tools and methods specifically to an agile development environment to estimate, measure, and analyze your agile software development projects. Andy Berner will demonstrate how SLIM fits with the principles of agile development, and will discuss what needs to be estimated, how size factors in, and how to accommodate different iteration lengths and types of work.  This will allow you to optimize the choices and plans for the work of your agile teams. 

On Thursday, March 26th at 1:00 PM EDT, Joe Madden will present QSM's Software Sizing Infographic: A Visual Aid for Understanding Software Size.

Software size, the amount of functionality in a given software release, is arguably the most critical of the five core metrics of software estimation. There is little point in tracking effort, duration, productivity and quality if you are unable to quantify what you are building. Yet, despite its critical importance, software sizing is often a difficult concept for many to understand and use properly in the estimation process. In this webinar, Joe Madden will give an overview of QSM's Software Size Matters Infographic, which addresses the challenges of measuring software size and identifies the most popular sizing methods and when to use them. With over 17 years of software sizing experience, Joe will provide case studies and best practices for real world application.

Joe Madden currently leads the QSM consulting division which has grown dramatically in the past six years and offers a wide range of professional services. These include the software estimation center of excellence, function point analysis, program and portfolio management, independent verification and validation, vendor management, benchmarking and process improvement, and expert witness services. A longtime client of the QSM SLIM Tools Suite and co-author of the book, "IT Measurement: Practical Advice from the Experts," Joe has more than 23 years of experience in IT management and consulting.

On Thursday, Jan 29th at 1:00 PM EST, QSM's Joseph Madden will present "Avoiding Disaster in IT Outsourcing: A Quantitative Solution for Vendor Management."

In the Forbes article “Now Every Company is a Software Company,” David Kirkpatrick argues “regardless of industry your company is now a software company, and pretending that it’s not spells serious peril.”

As organizations in nearly every industry sector transform into software companies, many executives, project managers, and procurement departments are being thrust into the role of managing IT vendors on software projects, yet they do not have the expertise to do so effectively. Typical pain points include: