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Estimation Center of Excellence

QSM helps turn software estimation into a central business process.

Serious estimation–for serious organizations.

Designed for: Organizations with ongoing software development activities.

Ongoing software development activities need scalable estimation support.

At QSM, we specialize in helping organizations design, develop, deploy and sustain the robust, comprehensive estimation capabilities they’ll need to support a growing, thriving software development enterprise.

We’ll help you find the right people, impart the skills they’ll need to be successful, develop processes for more effective decision making, and build-out the operational analytics framework of an enterprise-grade Estimation Center of Excellence (ECoE).

Estimation Center of Excellence Process

1

Discovery

We'll meet with you and Program Management Office (PMO) stakeholders to identify pain points and goals and outline our approach for establishing enterprise estimation best practices.

2

Data Collection

We'll gather information about your current software estimation processes, associated systems, and data workflows. We'll guide and support enterprise historical software project data collection to establish a solid basis of estimation.  We'll also conduct a maturity and estimation skills assessment.

3

Analysis

We'll design and develop a set of software estimation processes, along with a roadmap for the implementation of the recommended SLIM® software applications. We'll generate historical trends by division or area of expertise to support early trend-based estimates.  We'll also train ECoE staff on process inputs, activities, and outputs, and provide estimate validation checklists.

4

Briefing

We’ll pilot the ECoE and work with you to work out operational issues before moving to full production. As ECoE operations expand across the enterprise, we'll support all aspects of estimation oversight and process improvement.

We offer three types of ECoE implementations: * Internal Development ECoE - intended for IT organizations that use internal resources for the majority of their software development projects. * Procurement & Vendor ECoE - intended for IT organizations that outsource most of their software development projects. * Oversight ECoE - operates at the headquarters level to provide executive-level visibility into the IT organization.

Benefits

More accurate estimates

Increase software estimation accuracy and reduce risk

Fact-based negotiations

Improve your ability to communicate and negotiate with business stakeholders resulting in plans where everyone wins

Consistent repeatable processes

Design and implement consistent estimation and closeout processes across the enterprise

Increased productivity

Measure the productivity and quality impacts of your IT investments.

Return on Investment

Learn More

Sometimes you just want external experts to provide objective assessments of your process and projects.  We have over 40 years of experience solving problems for clients, plus an external database of over 14,500 software projects to deliver transparent, credible results.

We can provide solutions to fit your timeframe and budget while adding significant value to address your challenges.