Cost To Recover from an IT Business Interruption
Aberdeen group published some interesting information regarding the time and cost to recover from business interruptions. Â This is the time to recover 90% of functionality. Â I recommend getting the complete report. Â They found that best in class recovered 6.5 times faster than laggards and had an average cost of $72,000 versus laggards with an average cost of $2,880,000.
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.
Software Estimating: Sources and Uses of Data and Data Driven Estimates Intro
These days software estimation vendors are competing to have the largest repositories of completed software projects, and the customer is encouraging this competition, which is fundamentally good. Â However, there is more to insuring the accuracy of an estimation model than just having a lot of data points sitting on the proverbial shelf.
Where Data Comes From
The first question asked of a vendor is, where does your data on completed software projects come from? Â Early on, much of it came from Government agencies, who in turn collected from contractors. Â Over time, public sources have emerged that contain voluntarily submitted information from private companies worldwide; the prime example of this being the International Software Benchmark Standards Group (ISBSG). Â Galorath has obtained software project data over the years through numerous private and public sources. Â The data comprises many thousands of total observations that have passed data quality tests. Â Most observations contain size and effort information, thousands more do not contain all the desired fields.
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 2010 International User Conference Papers Are Available
http://www.galorath.com/index.php/library/estimating-united-conference/
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.
Interesting ROI Spreadsheet for Software Process
Shows ROI of inspections, PSP, tsp, and more http://davidfrico.com/roi-book.htm
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.
Addressing the Need for More Female Computer Science Graduates
Gender equity in computing has long been a national goal advanced by those concerned with fairness and by those who know that the female point of view improves the design and development of software systems. Unfortunately, the percentage of young women entering computing-related majors keeps falling, and the female dropout rate is higher than the very high male dropout rate.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a large increase in the need for B.S. and M.S. computing graduates in the next decade. The largest untapped pool of potential computing majors and, eventually, computing professionals, is science- and math-talented high school students, but only about 10% of entering undergraduate majors in computing majors are female. Despite the many initiatives aimed at attracting young women, the number of female computing majors keeps dropping.
Prof David Klappholz is involved in the Real Projects for Real Clients Courses (RPRCC) initiative, a K-12 and college level ACM-W project aimed at recruiting young women into, and retaining them in, computing-related majors. The initiative’s approach is based upon a 35-year-long psychological study that followed hundreds of mathematically- and scientifically-talented youth from middle school to middle age and elucidates gender differences in career choice.
Galorath’s head of development is female, as is nearly half our development staff. Â And so naturally from us, three cheers for RPRCC!
From http://users.drew.edu/ftrees/TECS/Session_Descriptions.htm
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.
New “Bid To Win” Book Available For Download
Galorath’s Evin Stump and SEER customer Bill Vitaliano wrote an excellent book on preparing winning bids. While Evin did this on his own time, he has given Galorath permission to distribute it.
I am pleased to recommend this book covering the right things to produce winning proposals. It saddens me when people equate price to win with lying or low-balling since price to win can be a viable engineering approach for defining the best product or service for a client while ensuring it is also affordable. While this book is written with larger proposals in mind I believe many of its principles are applicable to both bidding and internal development. Bid To Win Book
In addition to the basic book, the authors have written a bid to win novel, Saving SEIC: An Industrial Love Story, to bring the points home (if you have read “The Goal,” you will be familiar with this approach.)
For a succinct summary of the costing part of price to win, I also recommend Galorath’s Bob Hunt’s price to win briefing found elsewhere on this site.
PS: I am at the APMP conference where I heard a rave review of the book and the process. Hats off to both Evin and Bill.
PS2: Someone asked me today why they didn’t charge for the book. Evin said they just wanted to make it available to the community.
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
