21 June 2008
Estimating Like Pro
On Wednesday, June 18th, I had the honor of presenting our approach to software estimation at the Central Virginia Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Hard-won over the past 10 years, it helps unite both plan driven and agile approaches for estimating software development projects. Owing to serendipity (and 10 years of preparation), overall the approach and presentation appear to have been relatively well-received. Our approach blends academic theory with real world expertise and is, infact, embodied in our product, Planix. In truth, we’ve developed and customized these approaches while standing on the shoulders of giants such as Barry Boehm. We’ve focused on distillation and the ability to (in some cases) enter fact-based negotiations in under a day (honestly). One of the key objectives of the process is to quickly get to a point of being able to negotiate functionality, schedule, and cost with your customers. The abstract for the presentation is as follows …
Software estimation continues to be a daunting process. Traditional plan driven approaches are being usurped by Agile-oriented methodologies. While the Agile Manifesto and Lean concepts are an important toolkit for the day-to-day management of a project, designed to help a team tune itself to its own capabilities and productivity over the life of the project, the application development estimation process still continues to be a dark art. Project Leadership must still answer to those more senior in the organization and those leaders must still answer to the market and investors. Often times, the question they ask is, ‘When will it be done?’ Ultimately, this becomes the seminal question for organizations eager to increase revenue through the marketing of new capabilities.
In this presentation, we’ve tried to provide some glue and distill some powerful concepts which can allow teams to rapidly enter negotiation with business customers regarding functionality, schedule, and cost. This seminar is focused on helping analysts, architects, and project managers become more confident using rapid and accurate estimation and planning skills. It serves to bridge the gap between Lean/Agile approaches and the more intensive forecasting needs of organizations of various sizes.
The presentation is presented below. For more info, or to see it live contact us.
The full seminar is focused on helping analysts, architects, and project managers become more confident using rapid and accurate estimation and planning skills. The seminar serves to bridge the gap between Lean/Agile approaches and the more intensive forecasting needs of organizations of various sizes. Participants will:
1. Understand the basic structure of a business requirement
2. Learn to listen for keywords in order to help organize the suite of requirements
3. Gain an appreciation for basic use cases and user stories
4. Obtain a basic overview for the use case point methodology for software
5. Appreciate how to frame scope negotiation on a feature-by-feature
6. Appreciate the power of architecture and design in work-planning
7. Appreciate the power of what-if scenarios for estimates
Technorati Tags: Software estimation, project estimation, Joint requirements planning, use cases, user stories, agile, use case points, objectory, Gustav Karner, Barry Boehm, feature-driven development, service oriented architecture, iterative development
very interesting presentation .. while i would like to see it in person, its one of the more understandable documents i’ve seen on estimation .. succinctly, put. congratulations.