Estimation Accuracy

Case Study: Estimation Accuracy

Estimation is one of the most critical factors in the timely and within budget completion of project in organization. A deficiency in the estimation methodology can lead to even project cancellations.

The company in this case study was impacted by the budget and time over run and as a result clients of the organization were not happy. Even some clients insisted on the project cancellation. DQS India Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) was contacted by the organization to build an effective and accurate Estimation Methodology.

With a team of highly qualified SMEs, DQS Certification India Private Limited, a Delhi Quality Services initiative for Corporate Excellence since 1994, and Authorized Transition Partner with SEI (Software Engineering Institute), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, USA for providing CMMI® Assessment and Training Services, was able to meet the client’s expectations.

ESTIMATION ACCURACY WITH CMMI® QUALITY FRAMEWORK

Industry

Development for Defense in Turkey

The Client

A leading Turkey based Software Development Company supplier to Department of Defense, Government of Turkey, developing for Defense domain.

The Challenge

To improve the Estimation methodology, so that projects estimation are accurate and does not lead to issues related to budget and schedule over run.

The Solution

Using the CMMI® framework, DQS India conducted an initial study of the processes and estimation methodologies used by the organization for project effort estimation and identified the changes that would have a maximum impact to improve the estimation accuracy.

During this study DQS SMEs studied the variance in Estimated Effort and the actual efforts of past projects and draw various conclusions. Important factors found during the study were weight-age given to the Personal Experience during the effort estimation and non-alignment of different teams, like Business Development Teams and Technical Teams, for project proposals.

Based on these factors various improvements were suggested and were implemented by the client with the help of the DQS India Team.

Summary of the changes suggested and incorporated at the organizational and project level is:

  • Trainings on different Estimation Techniques, like WBS, Delhi and Function Point, were provided to the Business Development Team, Technical Team and Sr. Developers for better estimation, so that Effort can be best estimated accurately for Development and Non-Development Effort.
  • Trainings on different Requirements Elicitation Techniques were provided to the Requirement Gathering Team at the company. This leads to the better Requirements Understanding at the project proposal stage.
  • Collaboration was suggested between the Business Development Team and Technical Team. Collaboration between them lead to the Estimation alignment and Project Effort were estimated accurately.
  • Use of Project Asset Library for Estimation was demonstrated to Teams. This lead to the effective use of past project estimation and assets to estimate the effort for new projects and also validating the new efforts estimates based on the similar past project.

Results of Improvements in Estimation Accuracy: Before and After

Results of Improvements in Estimation Accuracy: Before and After

Quantitative Benefits

25% improvement in Effort Accuracy was achieved as a result of process improvements activities.

Key Benefits

Improved the teams capability to estimate the Project Effort accurately so that projects are delivered on-time and within budgets.


 

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