Dan Galorath eWeek Interview With Leading IT Editor Available as a Podcast

- October 21, 2008 - El Segundo, Calif.— Dan Galorath, president and CEO of Galorath Incorporated, the California-based software company known for its SEER® estimation and modeling applications, was interviewed on September 29th for eWeek.com by Ziff Davis editorial director and senior vice president Michael Vizard. The program, entitled “A Failure to Learn from Past Experience,” focused on why most IT projects are late and over budget. It is available as a podcast at http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/A-Failure-to-Learn-from-Past-Experience.

During the course of the interview, Galorath defined IT project failures as those that come in significantly over budget. Quoting a Defense Department report, he said that up to 90 percent of all projects qualify as such and blamed overconfidence in vendors, an abundance of optimism and the tendency of IT to accept unrealistic projections from corporate managers. Estimating capabilities, he said, can be obtained for under $20,000-with the investment often recouped after the very first project. The lesson being that parametric modeling doesn't just help companies choose the appropriate project and the right vendor, it can help decide which projects are unfeasible and should not be attempted at all.

In a discussion of outsourcing, Galorath pointed out that applications like SEER for IT and SEER for Software (SEER-SEM^TM) can transform managers into better educated consumers. By modeling a project beforehand, they can obtain a more accurate picture of its size and complexity, he said, avoiding overbilling practices such as double-charging for changes already factored into the original estimate. He pointed out that the failure to apply sound management practices can result in unwarranted optimism and unrealistic expectations. The key, he said, is the willingness to apply the lessons of past failures to new projects.

About Galorath Incorporated
Galorath Incorporated has invested more than two decades developing solutions to help government and commercial organizations plan and manage complex software, hardware, electronics, manufacturing and IT projects. Its suite of SEER productivity development applications is the most comprehensive estimation and management solution in the industry. Visit http://www.galorath.com for additional information.