Dealng With IT Challenges With Estimating

May 28, 2009 · Filed Under IT Estimating  - 0 Comment(s)

Galorath’s Karen McRitchie, VP of Product Development,  did a webinar this morning on IT estimating.  She pointed out that three of the primary CIO goals are:

  1. Improve Business Processes
  2. Deliver Better Customer Services
  3. Cut Costs

She pointed out the challenges of IT estimation… software, servers, processes, service management, legislation, technology, business issues.

She discussed how in most organizations IT estimation is not a repeatable process and that estimates even within an organization are often not comparable.

She pointed out the issues of expert judgement subjectiveness, difficulties using spreadsheets and issues of bottoms up missing items and actually estimating hours and costs.

She referred to the ability to capture “tribal knowledge” so it is not lost when situations change.

She then showed how SEER for IT (SEER-IT) solves IT estimation challenges…

  • Accurate Estimates
  • Knowledge bases WBSs and scenarios (patterns) capturing tribal knowledge
  • Parametric estimating providing effort, schedule, cost and risk
  • Repeatability
  • Avoidance of surprises

And Some Questions Answered

Are we building the right projects? 

Are we building the projects right?

 Is this project worth the cost / schedule?

 What are the opportunity costs of this project?… Are there other projects that would provide more business value?

 How can we avoid surprises? … projects with serious overruns or reduced functionality?

 Are we getting a fair deal from vendors or outsource partners?

How can IT provide the most business value to the organization?

Is a proposed system / architecture viable?


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.

Related posts:

  1. 7 Truths About Estimating IT Infrastructure & Services Webinar
  2. Optimizing IT or Engineering In Tough Economic Times Through SEER
  3. Draft Estimating IT Infrastructure and IT Services
  4. Cost Estimating Throughout the World
  5. Estimating Opportunity Costs

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