Galorath at SEPG, San Jose
I just saw a press release that went out regarding Galorath Incorporated at the Software Engineering Process Group (SEPG) conference in San Jose. I am heading there today myself. Here is the press release:
Galorath Incorporated to Showcase SEER® at SEPG North America 2009
Leading project management software company will introduce new set of users to software.
El Segundo, CA (PRWEB) March 23, 2009 — Galorath Incorporated, the producer of the SEER project estimating software, will exhibit at the upcoming SEPG North America 2009 Conference, March 23-26 in San Jose, CA. The 2009 SEPG North America Conference is hosted by Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI). SEPG North America is one of the premier conferences for software and systems professionals in government, industry, and academia. SEPG Conferences provide a venue for knowledge sharing, learning, and networking focused on performance improvement through enhanced process capability.
Galorath will be exhibiting at booth #200 and will showcase its SEER project estimation software, a suite of predictive modeling solutions for software cost estimation and estimating IT projects.
SEER for Software (SEER-SEM) is a powerful decision-support model for estimating software development and maintenance cost, labor, staffing, schedule, reliability, and risk as a function of size, technology, and any project management constraints. The SEER for Software estimation and analysis suite of applications provides an integrated solution that supports all phases of the software project life cycle. SEER for Software is effective for all types of software projects, from commercial IT business applications to real-time embedded aerospace systems. SEER for Software assists users in making vital decisions about the development and maintenance of software products to ensure that project plans are realistic, objective and defendable.
SEER for IT (SEER-IT), estimating software for IT projects, was designed for IT professionals, enabling organizations to develop an early and accurate assessment of project costs, schedules, and risks as well as ongoing support, helping to maximize productivity and output with fixed or declining budgets. SEER for IT has a collection of IT estimation elements (process models) which can be used to define the work required as well as patterns for typical organizational approaches. Users can create custom Knowledge Bases and perform analyses with metrics derived from company project histories and task labor standards.
About Galorath Incorporated
For more than two decades Galorath Incorporated has developed solutions to help government and commercial organizations plan and manage complex software, hardware, electronics and manufacturing projects. Leveraging sophisticated modeling technology and project-applicable knowledge bases, SEER solutions enable engineers, project managers, cost analysts and IT professionals worldwide to simulate and analyze alternative project scenarios, develop and optimize detailed project plans and ensure that projects stay on track and meet objectives for functionality, cost, effort, duration and quality. Combined with extensive consulting and support services, SEER by Galorath is the most comprehensive, intuitive project estimation and management solution in the industry. Please visit www.galorath.com for additional information.
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.
Marvelous User Conference: Estimating United at Manchester United
We had a marvelous users conference at the Manchester United Stadium in the UK. Users provided insights in application of SEER to cost estimating, value engineering, supply chain management, software estimating, target costing, function points, COSMIC function points, and much more.
Conference presentations will be posted on galorath.com in a few days.
The conference had multiple tracks so I missed many of the talks. But of those I heard i especially liked the talk on how using SEER for value engineerin and cost estimating saved MILLIONS of euros bydesigning for cost, the talk covering how a consortium of European countries is using SEER to make project management decisions and the talk describing how a major university used SEER to determine the best redesign of an aircraft.
The real highlight, however, was running out to the pitch at the Manchester United stadium. We ran from the players locker room thru the tunnel they use while a recording of the crowd roaring approval played.
I dont know how our Los Angeles users conference in October can top that.
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 Estimating United Conference At Manchester United Stadium, UK
I had the opportunity to review the agenda for the SEER Estimating United Conference at the Manchester United Football (Soccer) Stadium coming up March 19th. Very exciting to see the lineup of speakers and events. We will hear from organizations saving millions by using SEER, and from the inventor of the COSMIC function point method, for example. Estimation, planning, control and project success with SEER will be featured. More details will be on the galorath.com web site soon.
Speaking of football, in the UK everyone seems to have their favorite soccer team… Beyond the level in the US (My own kids are big fans of Manchester United and are envious of my opportunity to tour the stadium). My families closest thing to an obsession is they are big LA Lakers (Basketball) fans and live near Sasha)… one of the players  But in the UK sports team loyalty seems to be an obsession.
SO please, SEER users who are not Manchester United Fans, forgive us and come to the conference anyway. 
And for US users who don’t want to travel so far, there is something for you coming in the fall that will be announced any day. Perhaps not as exciting as the conference in the UK, but will great speakers and interaction with other SEER users as well.
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.
Estimating Project Risk Using Scenarios (Without Monte Carlo)
I was at a costing syposium today where Paul Garvey of Mitre gave a talk on doing risk analysis without using Monte Carlo or other statistical techniques. Paul, one of the gurus of statistical risk and the author on the definitive book on cost risk: “Probability Methods for Cost Uncertainty Analysis”, said after 25 years of dealing with Monte Carlo and all the mistakes the non-gurus make in setting up Monte Carlo analysis he had determined it is prudent to use a non statistical technique. 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.
The Risk of Statistical Risk
I was at the SCEA (Society of Cost Estimation and Analysis) conference this week. Â Some of the buzz was about risk, both talks given at the conference and the ongoing risk arguments. Â For several years the risk gurus have been lining up to show how to do more robust risk analysis. Â While I would not say they are getting carried away I would say i get concerned with the differences of opinion and the numerous options provided by smart people.
One of my heroes in risk, Dr. Steve Book or MCR points out that risk analysis should include correlation.
One of my other risk heroes, Evin Stump (of Galorath), points out that defining correlation properly for a work breakdown of any size can involve of thousands of correlation entries. For example a 500 element WBS has 124, 500 correlations and a 1000 element WBS has 499,000 correlations. Â Dr. Book doesn’t point that out but he does say “use .2″ Â That solves the hundreds of thousands of correlations issue. Â But according to Evin that doesn’t provide more accurate risk analysis. Â Evin points out “if two or more risky items are not statistically independent, a Monte Carlo simulation that fails to account for their correlation will underestimate their combined risk” Â He then asks “what if you overestimate correlation?” Â Hmmm could it be that .2 correlations could overestimate some systems. Â Evin also points out how difficult it is to actually determine correlation…. For example, what is the correlation between a light bulb and a light bulb on/off switch… Probably near zero but most people would be tempted to assign a high correlation. 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.
Estimation & Agile Development… Plan and Control Agile Projects
While at the IBM Rational user conference in Orlando I (Dan Galorath) attended a briefing by Scott Ambler, practice leader of Agile development for Rational. He had an interesting (and refreshing) perspective on Agile and Agile planning.
I have always cringed when I heard Agile people saying essentially.. “forget planning.. we are Agile… we will solve tomorrow’s problems tomorrow” That may be fine for tiny projects, but how do major projects get justified and funded without some kind of estimate and plan? And how do managers control them?
Scott spoke of satisfying governance requirements by generating estimates and plans within the agile environment. He also recognized that the business people need to understand business costs and business value so cost versus value tradeoffs can be properly made. He also pointed out that systems architectures and other constraints should be agreed upon up front. He said that architecture should be determined in the first couple weeks, not left for months.
Scott showed some interesting survey results showing that agile projects that are colocated are far more successful than those that are distributed.
This was timely since so many people are talking about Agile these days. Additionally Galorath Analyst David DeWitt has produced a paper on detailed Agile estimating with SEER and applied it with a customer. Send an email to info@galorath.com to receive a copy of David’s paper. And feel free to comment here about your Agile successes and failures and how project planning and control impacted them. And how SEER for Software has been involved.
And to those who have decided Agile means don’t plan or do any of the things that have helped to turn software from an art to an engineering discipline… Please plan and control your Agile projects. They will be far more successful if you do. Yes, the planning is somewhat different than Waterfall projects. But Agile doesn’t mean forget planning.
And to the question.. do I need SEER if I do Agile development…. a resounding yes.
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.
Reducing Software Maintenance and Total Ownership Costs
Over 75% of the costs of software are in software maintenance. To address this I (Dan Galorath) participated in a best practices conference held by the IT Metrics & productivity Institute. I was fascinated by Herb Krasner’s presentation on software evolution versus software maintenance.
Herb defined software evolution as the set of activities, both technical and managerial, that ensures that software continues to meet organizational and business objectives in a cost effective way. He further defines evolutionary system types as either having an Imprecise statement of a real-world problem which generally changes over time or a system that becomes part of the world that it models/implement whose acceptance depends entirely on opinion and judgment. Evolutionary is in contrast with a maintenance system where the problem can be completely stated and where a change to the specification defines a new problem and a new system.
Herb Krasner , David Garmus, and Dan Galorath talks all illustrated how the use of metrics and management associated with measurement through both development and maintenance can reduce total ownership costs dramatically.
We then heard from Bob Lawhorn who spoke on how his company, Computer Aid Inc (CAI) actually saves organizations money and increases quality by taking over legacy system maintenance and support. It was one of the most inspiring illustrations on why we should do all this I ever saw. He spoke of taking over these systems with new hires, applying the CAI processes and measurement and reducing customer costs by around 30%. And they have been doing this for over 20 years.
Overall I came away inspired, seeing how software estimation, measurement, process, and real management of software like manufacturing is making a difference.
I will be presenting my talk on reducing total ownership costs several more times this year in partnership with CAI.
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
