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QSM Releases New Book: Understanding Software Estimation, Negotiation, and Demand Management

Executive Primer Provides Industry Leaders with Critical Information Regarding the State of Software Development 

MCLEAN, VA, August 5, 2015 – Quantitative Software Management, Inc. (QSM), a leader in software process improvement and systems development estimation, today released a new book entitled, “Understanding Software Estimation, Negotiation, and Demand Management.” The resource includes a 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., 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:

  • The IT innovation cycle
  • The most common reasons why software projects fail and what you can do about it
  • Fact-based decisions – How to establish a baseline
  • The software production equation and Rayleigh Staffing Model
  • Multiple release and complex program estimation
  • Capacity planning and demand management
  • Tracking, forecasting, execution, and post mortem
  • Understanding quality and reliability
  • What does it take to successfully implement estimation?

Released due to a demand for software estimation resources from customers and the industry, the book provides analysis of historical software projects to provide industry insights.  The statistics used in this analysis come from the QSM Metrics Database, which includes data from over 10,000 completed software projects from North and South America, Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia, representing over 740 million lines of code, 600+ development languages, and 105,833 person years of effort. 

“Historically, only 20% of software projects are completed successfully,” said Doug Putnam-Co-CEO at QSM.  “With software becoming critical to nearly every company and industry, having such a high rate of failure is simply unacceptable anymore.  Taylor and I wanted to highlight some of the reasons why this happens, and then provide some guidance on how to use software estimation to make more informed business decisions.”

You can download “Understanding Software Estimation, Negotiation, and Demand Management” by visiting: https://www.qsm.com/software-estimation-executive-primer.

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About Quantitative Software Management, Inc. (QSM)

Founded in 1978 by one of the pioneers of software measurement, Larry Putnam, Sr., QSM offers estimation products and consulting that enable federal and commercial clients to estimate, track and benchmark projects. QSM tools and methods help software and systems analysts negotiate achievable goals, set realistic expectations, and communicate more effectively with management and customers. QSM offers the SLIM (Software Lifecycle Management) Suite of tools, which contains metrics from a worldwide database of more than 10,000 completed projects, enabling productivity benchmarking on the desktop. Using SLIM to dynamically run 'virtual project simulations,' companies can model and forecast project releases to deliver on time, within budget with > 90% estimation accuracy. Visit us at www.qsm.com.