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Estimation is a critical step in any project plan. For many, project estimation is daunting, but it won't be if you include ESTIMATE Professional in your arsenal of estimation methods. This surprisingly easy-to-use planning and estimation tool helps you minimize risk and increases the confidence factor in your estimates significantly. Not only does it help you estimate project schedules, cost and effort, but it also helps you plan in a way that a project scheduler cannot. No wonder it's been recognized by the prestigious Software Development Magazine Jolt Awards (1998).

ESTIMATE Professional should be used by all project, quality and development managers, team leaders and senior engineers.

Estimation – the Challenge, the Solution

Many project managers assume (incorrectly) that setting a delivery date is an estimate. Inaccurate estimating often has devastating results: poor quality software, loss of credibility, lost marketing opportunities, budget overruns – just to mention a few. Accurate project estimation is about the most challenging and critical task facing software professionals and a reliable estimate is critical to the success of any software project.

Peace of Mind

ESTIMATE Professional removes the guesswork and uncertainty from your projects. It recognizes the volatile nature of software development, and takes into account this uncertainty and variability using Monte Carlo Simulation.

By allowing different calibration approaches, ESTIMATE Professional increases the confidence factor of your estimates. A wide selection of automated, detailed reports explain how your estimates were calculated, adding credibility to your results.

It is the only management tool which combines the most well-known and reliable estimation models* with statistical methods (Monte Carlo Simulation) to show how you can maximize your probability of success.

*COCOMO 2.0 and the Putnam Methodology

With ESTIMATE Professional You Can...

  • Generate an instant, initial estimate of development effort, schedule and cost.
  • Scope your project using time (effort) if you don't know the LOC or function point count. Or, if you prefer, estimate project components by LOC, function points, GUI features and more.
  • Get immediate feedback on whether you can meet schedule constraints with the desired scope of work.
  • Easily export/import to or from project schedulers such as Microsoft® Project (or spreadsheet software), for a total project management solution.
  • Adjust your project size easily to see what needs to be trimmed in order to deliver on time.
  • Increase the confidence factor of your estimates with reliable, scientific calculations.
  • Determine the degree of risk your organization is able to take so that you can plan or budget better to counter it.
  • Generate comprehensive reports that show all planning options in detail.
  • Predict the number of defects that might occur at a given point in your project.
  • Use wizards to accomplish estimates more easily.

Using the Tool

Once you have an initial estimate, you can begin use ESTIMATE Professional to help you optimize your project plan by doing "what-if" scenarios to examine the tradeoffs between different manpower, schedule, or cost options. This saves a lot of manual effort if you were to do this in a project scheduler like Microsoft® Project.

Using past project data as a basis for new estimates gives the most accurate results, but most organizations don't have it. This is where you can use the tool's indsutry data to create an initial estimate which you should then refine as you learn more about your own project. If you have historical data, you can store it in the tool's historical database for future use.

You can calibrate any estimate by adjusting attributes such as data reliability, documentation required, platform stability, programmer capability and experience and more.

A comprehensive set of reports will provide a full audit trail of all of the input data used to create an estimate. These reports provide backup and explanations for how your estimates were derived, and form a valuable basis for discussion and negotiation with key players.

Plan Confidently, What You Can Build Within Schedule

Project managers are often caught between a rock and a hard place. Business needs often demand software to be ready in deadlines that are often unrealistic, given the functionality that has to be included. See how to use ESTIMATE Professional to align your technical estimates with business goals (download available - Microsoft Word doc 1.18 Mb). A White Paper on "Why Planning Is Better with Estimation Than Without" is also available (208 kb pdf).

ESTIMATE Professional has a TimeBox Estimation feature which provides:

  • an at-a-glance view of the scope of each project component (feature or feature set)
  • an easy way to decide where to cut back and where to add more, or where to re-scope components to fit into the allotted time
  • greater control over your project's size
  • a way to ensure timely delivery

How it works: You set your project deadline. Then you balance delivery date and features by selectively including or excluding project components.

Plan Effectively with Requirements-based Estimates

There is substantial industry evidence that two of the leading causes for project failure are poor requirements management and poor project estimation. Using a detailed requirements list as a foundation for an estimate is a very good way to gain further insight into project effort. Software Productivity Center Inc. has collaborated with Technology Builders, Inc. to provide an integrated solution for requirements-based estimation using Caliber-RM™, a requirements management tool, and ESTIMATE Professional. By leveraging the work you put into defining and itemizing your requirements within the database-driven functionality of Caliber-RM, you can now identify the associated business risks with ESTIMATE Professional's estimation engine.

A great advantage of requirements-based estimates is that they generate an early picture of your schedule and staffing curve right at the beginning of the project lifecycle. Using the 'what-if' functionality in ESTIMATE Professional provides you immediate feedback on the impact of any changes in requirements so that more detailed and more accurate estimates can be generated as a project progresses through design.

Read more (13 kb pdf) about how you can obtain comprehensive requirements-based estimates to help you better allocate resources, and more accurately predict timeframe and costs in the early phases of a project.

Check out a demo of how you can take advantage of the integration between Caliber RM and ESTIMATE Professional to create
requirements-based estimates
.
The demo runs for about 5 minutes and is available from the

Caliber-RM integrations page
.


Estimation Expertise Is Not Required

ESTIMATE Professional's flexible interface and scoping methods allow project managers of all levels of experience to obtain reliable results and maintain control of their projects. The tool was originally created by author, Steve McConnell and his company, Construx Software Builders.

Unlike most other estimation software on the market, ESTIMATE Professional requires NO formal training or prior experience. Its simple wizards replace those tedious handbooks. If you want to learn more about basic estimation concepts and practices and how to maximize your gains from this simple yet powerful tool, check out our training and consulting links.

Tech Support

Customer support is FREE.

Minimum System Requirements

  • VGA monitor
  • Windows 95, 98 or Windows NT 4.0
  • CD ROM (the product is downloadable)

30-Day Demo

To obtain a free 30-day demo of ESTIMATE Professional, call us at 604-662-8181 ext. 102, or email tools@spc.ca.

 

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