Estimating IT Projects
SEER for IT was built to provide estimating abilities for IT Infrastructure and IT services.
SEER for Software provides the software development and maintenance portion.
Together the capture the total ownership costs of information technology systems.
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Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
The Cost of Cloud in the Sky Computing Part 1
Looking at ways to increase IT infrastructure without worrying about power, heat, space and other constraints…. Cloud in the sky computing (or cloud computing) may be an upcoming solution. Cloud in the sky essentially is buying.
Cloud computing can be defined as:Â an environment offering variable computing capacity and storage resources with dynamic provisioning and billing to support such real-time demands – a highly elastic response to demand changes along with a seemingly infinite pool of available resources.
Costs in Cloud Computing are generally measured in a usage-based formula. A cloud may be in the public or or corporation specific, behind their firewall.
Amazon Web Services is an example. Costs, as I understand them are about $0.10 per hour of usage plus storage costs at $.15 per gig per month for a clone of an HP Tower server. If an application is hosted and not used there is no cost. Not bad. I suppose we could add to the advantages that they back up the whole system without you worrying about it. On the other hand, your data is out of your control.
Galorath recently did a study of the costs / benefits of force.com, Salesforce’s environment with some similarities to Amazon. I need to find out if our results are publishable. But I can tell you we found force. com to be attractive in the appropriate environment.
We will use SEER for IT to do a general analysis of cloud versus local computers soon.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Code is Poetry?
As I was writing a BLOG entry I saw a new version of the blogging software was available. Being somewhat of a geek myself I went to look at the change list. I wanted to see if some of the things that drive me crazy have been fixed. At the bottom of the page I saw the phrase “code is poetry” Having a background in software development this comment put a smile on my face. I have worked with all types of developers. Some say “if it is working it is good, don’t change it” While there is some truth to that… changing code often introduces new defects, there is certainly some risk as well. As code may be error prone or unmaintainable, or can be made to execute more quickly (such as the latest release of SEER which writes to the database an order of magnitude faster.) But should good code be changed just to make it read better? Using SEER for Software I can see a potential of 20 to 50% of development or more just to ensure we have made anything go wrong.
Yet re-factoring old systems can sometimes product great improvements in maintainability.
I began to think of the analogy of code to electronic circuitry. Is electronics poetry? I don’t think so. It is sound (hopefully) engineering. i think the same is true for software. Code is an engineering product, not poetry.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
SEER for IT: The Making of a New Product and Lessons learned
Measurement certainly requires looking to the past to learn of the future. But there is a huge amount to be learned from the lessons learned themselves. Looking back on the SEER for IT development there are several lessons learned that go beyond just the measurements. Read more
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
IT Cost of Rogue Users
As I read my friend Paul Glen’s IT professionalism email today (well worth signing up for) I was struck by his analogy of the California wildfires and IT. He pointed out that many of the problems firefighters faced were due to persons who refused to evacuate when told to. He then discussed how this impacts IT. For example… items such as those who hook up their own wireless routers or use different cell phones than those certified by the company. Then expecting support for their unique configuration.
Quantifying those costs with a quick trade in SEER for IT (SEER-IT) showed:
- About an 4% increase in IT operations cost just to support 2% rogue users
Should IT let them keep on with their “solution” and figure out how to support IT(potentially significant incremental cost), or chop them off at the knees? Lower cost and lower customer satisfaction. While the following is very rough, I think it illustrates the problem. Assuming a global IT budget of $255 billion and 2% of rogue users at 20% of organizations and a third of IT being dedicated to services .
- That could cost of a bit over $673 million annually
For those interested in seeing this analysis in SEER-IT drop an email and we will send a server mode script that will recreate the analysis. Or, if you don’t have SEER-IT we can show you how the analysis was done.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Metrics and Estimation ROI
I was speaking with Ton Dekker and others from Galorath this morning abut the ROI from viable estimation. Ton pointed to the empirical evidence of a 10 to 15% saving in overall IT spending based on the implementation of a metrics program and estimation going along with it. Ton also spoke of MOUSE…. the “list of activities and services that need to be carried out to get a metrics program up and running.” The activity and service groups within MOUSE include:
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Market View |
Operation |
Utilisation |
Service |
Exploitation |
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Communication |
Application |
Training |
Helpdesk |
Registration |
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Evaluation |
Review |
Procedures |
Guidelines |
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Improvement |
Analysis |
Organisation |
Information |
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Investigation |
Advice |
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Promotion |
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Why is all this important…. Well a viable metrics is not just collecting data… it is not just about checking a box. It is about communication, evaluation, and improvement. Looking at the number of metrics programs that fail, (the average life of a metrics program is 3 years according to Howard Rubin in 2006) It is about achieving business value with metrics. Programs that generate 10 or 15% cost savings generally don’t get killed. Programs that make more work and don’t have a payback can and should be killed.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Common Management Techniques Improve Productivity in Manufacturing
An article in the Wall Street Journal discussed studies measuring productivity of common management techniques such as setting targets, monitoring performance and lean manufacturing and were able to quantify the revenue and cost improvements associated with them.
It is good to see measurement and analysis playing such an important role in manufacturing operations.
the study found US factories are better managed than other countries but the gap is shrinking.
SEER for manufacturing’s job is to help set targets (should cost) measure performance and quantify improvements. The ROI on this work can be huge. ”Globally, the study found that a one-point increase in a factory’s average rating (on the one-to-five scale) translated to a 25% increase in labor productivity and a 65% increase in return on invested capital”
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Reasons For Cost Overruns
Evin Stump, one of Galorath’s  risk gurus provided a list of major overrun causes this I thought was interesting:
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Challenging the state of-the-art
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Shortages of talent, especially in early project months
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Imposition of unrealistic schedules
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Underfunding, either intentional or due to inadequate estimating
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Poor definition of requirements
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Customer uncertainty about what they want
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Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
“But the Product Meets The Specs…” Poor Analysis, Cost Overruns and Risk
I recently got the clever idea to purchase a folding bicycle so I could have a decent bike when on vacation… The plan was to check the bicycle with the airlines in a standard suitcase. I spent hours researching on the web. I spoke to a couple of bike stores. Then I placed my order. A few days later a BIG box appeared on my doorstep. The bicycle was a magnificent piece of engineering. Unfolds in about 15 seconds. Only one problem. The bicycle was designed for the older airline luggage size. With the newer, more stringent standards this bicycle is high risk. If they allow it to be checked at all there is up to a $270 extra charge.
The people at the bike store didn’t tell me. Perhaps they didn’t know. Â I wasn’t smart enough to catch the problem in my analysis activity.
It struck me that this is the same kind of problem that plagues product development and associated cost analysis. We have an end in mind. But that end gets lost in the details of specifications. And bad assumptions…. Parametric modeling can handle the cost, schedule, risk, etc. for product development. And it should identify risks and tie them back to the estimates. A model that can predict the overruns / inefficiencies in an estimate could potentially mitigate such problems. This is more than just Monte Carlo analysis which can show the risk within WBS elements, but cause and effect analysis. SEER approaches this by tying a risk register back to the estimate. And other, more exotic methods are floating around the labs. Our people have been showing this off in conjunction with Oracle to rave reviews.
Anyone want to buy a folding bike?
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Open Source Software Is Not Free
There is a great BLOG entry from someone who went back to Microsoft after a year at Google. Some of his observations are very relevant to the use of open source software. He points out that at Google there is little of project management or testing.
“On the other hand, I was using Google software… there’s just too much of it that is regularly broken. It seems like every week 10% of all the features are broken in one or the other browser. And it’s a different 10% every week – the old bugs are getting fixed, the new ones introduced. This across Blogger, Gmail, Google Docs, Maps, and more.”
I know it drives me crazy when software that worked last week suddenly doesn’t. Of course the same thing happens to some extent when my Windows system kindly updates itself each week. Read more
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Project Prediction Infographic
