IME represents the integration, combination and systematic enhancement of scientific methods and models. The intelligent consideration of all relevant elements, including project types, process models, hard facts, soft facts, quality and risk factors and constraints, ensures accurate estimation. IME ensures the reliable estimation of effort, time, resources and costs, as well as risks, defects and documentation page count over the entire application lifecycle.

Our expertise is based on almost 100 scientifically published methods and models, or industry de-facto standards and is combined with analyses of 35'000 projects. Cost Xpert supports prospective estimation and reliably forecasts all relevant project aspects. This means that neither an analysis of completed past projects, nor regression analysis are necessary.

The IME helps you to estimate any IT project, including the following:

• IT Infrastructure
• System Software
• Standard Software
• Individual Software
• New Development (NEW)
• Modification (REUSED)
• Integration of Third-Party (COTS)
• Innovation projects

Also, projects that are not directly related to pure coding (development):

• Implementation
• Testing
• Deployment
• Maintenance

With our methodology, our clients obtain accurate and reproducible results for 100% of all IT projects. Many of our clients confirm the accuracy of IME estimates at ± 20% out of the box. After implementation of our C3 accuracy process, our clients report an accuracy of:

• After completion of phase 1 (Collecting), estimation accuracy is usually within the range of ±10 – 20%
• Once phase 2 (Configuration) is completed, estimation accuracy will improve to ±10%
• After completion of phase 3 (Calibration), our clients achieve an accuracy level of under 10% for system, standard, and individual software

In principle, all IT projects can be estimated. The smallest valuable project, for example, is to copy a data record in Excel. Our client’s smallest projects are 20 person-hours. The most complex project we estimated ran over several years and included over 20'000 individual software projects. It was completed with an accuracy level of 7 % between estimates and later actuals.

Cost Xpert offers an inter-industry solution for vendors and contractors, both locally active small customers and large global customers, ranging from military to public sector. Therefore, Cost Xpert supports local outlets as well as worldwide enterprises, with small projects right up to high-tech embedded projects lasting years.

To support all industry sectors, Cost Xpert identified and implemented different “Project Types” representing the type or domain for a given IT project with a baseline calibration for each one of them. This assures high estimation accuracy for any IT projects in each domain. Currently the CX Tool Suite supports 36 project types.

The Tool Suite currently supports about 900 technologies. Technologies are programming languages, IDEs, frameworks and macros, e.g. ABAP, C#, COBOL, Java, HTML, Visual Studios, Crystal Reports, SQL, WebSphere and more. This allows not only the estimation of pure coding, but also deployment projects, reporting systems and implementation.

IME offers a practice-oriented solution with the objective to reliably estimate any application, at any point in time, over the entire project lifecycle. This begins early in the proposal phase, and continues through planning, execution, implementation, stabilization, operations and up to end of life. Different approaches (Question 20), in combination with predefined settings in our expert system, make it possible to estimate and get reliable results with a high degree of accuracy.

a) The following input data is necessary:

• project type/domain
• client environment (e.g. technologies)
• process models
• Hard-facts (e.g. Requirements, input of size)

b) Additional settings can be adjusted to further fine tune the estimate and/or represent specific project situations:

• Soft-facts (e.g. project, product)
• Constraints (e.g. response time)

To ensure the professional application of the methods, we recommend the participation in specific trainings (http://www.costxpert.eu/en/contact_request). The Cost Xpert application itself supports the user with its intuitive workflow, pre-calibrated values and its wizards.

Our expertise usually only needs company- and project specific information/customer documents, such as processes, standards, quality specifications and details of requirements (e.g. functions to business level, functional requirements, tender documents, change documents, technical requirements or plain text documents). Thus, the customer is not required to do any additional work.

Cost Xpert offers an extensive and detailed set of durable results and plans:

• Total effort in Person-Months and Person-Hours
• Total schedule
• Labor Distribution Costs per role
• System integration costs
• Cost increases (for projects > 12 months)
• Amount of documentation
• Typical and additional project-specific risks, including tolerance limits and sensitivity
• Maintenance costs, total error, including demarcation on the error types
• Resource scheduling with workload and peak values
• Work breakdown structure with project plans (schedule, resource plan)
• Financial resource plan per week/month/quarter/year

The methodology takes the percentage of maintenance expenditure of the total expense, and increasing cost rates into account. This allows for the determination of the total cost of maintenance for a period of 20 years, including the resources required. Furthermore, the total number of estimated errors are identified and categorized by defect types (requirements, design, coding, bad fixes, documents). Combined with the results determined, this allows comprehensive cost controlling.

Estimation of releases and/or versions is possible at any time. Any project of a release/version will be merged with the portfolio manager. This allows reliable estimation of time required, resources and costs, including risks, errors documentation page count and the planning and control of releases.

CX Tool Suite is capable of combining any number of IT projects into one portfolio. The result is an overall view of the total personnel costs, total time required, costs increases, system integration costs, total costs and personnel costs per base role. All reports (question 17) are available for them.

One highlight of the Cost Xpert Tool Suite is the portfolio management. With this feature, any projects in the multi-project management and release management are summarized into one portfolio. In addition, the Portfolio Manager provides a rich set of predefined reports and graphs quickly and easily by pressing a button. Clearly defined reports and graphs represent specific project and/or portfolio information in an easy to read format, while supporting efficient information management.

The Cost Xpert Tool Suite delivers the input for project management tools. That means comprehensive plans (Work Breakdown Structure with project, time and resource plan) were generated based on the entered data. The plan can now be imported into any project management tools. There, the data is available for further use. Thus, our methodology provides a valuable support for professional project management while significant reducing effort and time in project planning, management and controlling.

The Cost Xpert Tool Suite provides a wide range of pre-defined sets of reports (Reporting) and Power Point templates (e.g. Summary, work breakdown structure, risk, cash requirements plan, etc.) The reports can be generated easily and quickly based on the current project data and therefore reflect the latest status of the estimate. This ensures quick and targeted delivery of consistent and transparent project data/information to facilitate accurate traceability. In addition, the PowerPoint templates can be branded with customer information (logo, etc.).

IME provides extensive analysis options, such as What-if analysis, Make-or-buy, Outsourcing, Earned Value Analysis, Cost-Benefit analysis, feasibility analysis, GAP analysis, trend and causal analysis, risk and tolerance levels, sensitivity analysis, etc. By simulating different project scenarios, various project situations are compared and benchmarked.

The tool suite provides comprehensive and detailed benchmarking options: e.g. Teams, applications, technologies/programming languages, processes, productivity factors, suppliers, products...

Furthermore, there are also these following IT metrics: e.g. effort, time, cost, resources, documentation, methods, factors, errors, risks, maintenance costs, productivity, efficiency, minimal time requirement, minimum costs, change requests, requirements creep, and much more.

Requirements, also known as hard-facts, are used to determine the size of IT projects. This includes all artifacts that can be quantified, such as interfaces, inputs and outputs. These are shown in metrics of sizing methods. Various types of sizing methods are supported:

• Business-based (e.g. Requirements Evolution)
• Model-based (e.g. UML Use Case Points, etc.)
• Function-based (e.g. Function Points, Feature Points, Object Metrics, etc.)
• Data-based (e.g. Data Conversion Points)
• Other (SLOC, Bottom-Up, Top-Down)

Cost Xpert currently supports 26 sizing methods.

REUSE is a separate model, integrated into the sizing methods, with their own metrics and additional soft-facts.

The percentage values for the factors are taken into account:

• Design modification
• Code modification
• Integration and Test

Furthermore, the following values are taken into account, which are supported by a wizard:

• Assessment and Assimilation = degree of efficiency
• Software Understanding = degree of understanding with the application
• Unfamiliarity of the Software = degree of familiarity with the application

The estimate is based on the percentage of effort for Integration and Testing (IT) and Assessment and Assimilation (AA) (= degree of efficiency) for those module(s) to be integrated, aided by a wizard.

Enter the percentage value for hard-and soft-fact-specific factors:

• Integration and Test
• Assessment and assimilation = degree of efficiency

IME enables continuous integration of new requirements (e.g. Requirements Creep, Change Requests, Staffing, etc.) at any time during the project. This assures initial and project-related estimates at all times. “Baselining” can visually display the impact of changes to the estimate and different levels of requirements can be compared transparently. This allows the analysis and identification of tolerance for change requests, including the consideration of dependencies. All plans are updated automatically.

a) Within a new development (NEW) the values are taken into account using the Three-Time-Method (best – expected – worst), also known as Beta-Distribution. This is used to increase the planning security of inaccurate information.

b) Incomplete requests are mapped with the Requirements Evolution Slider (CX application: Quality & Risks). This allows the ability to estimate in early phases, when only a sub-set of the total requirements are known. E.g. 75% of the requirements are captured with the respective input of size and the remaining 25% of the requirements are accounted for by setting the Requirements Evolution slider to 25%, accounting for 100% of the requirements. It can also be used to account for anticipated scope creep and/or requirements evolution by setting the Requirements Evolution slider to the anticipated percentage level for the additional requirements to be added when the project is being executed.

Cost Xpert supports all published scientific procedures and process models, as well as de facto industry standards (currently 48 pre-defined process models), and provides detailed transparency of processes and interactions of activities. This includes sequential, iterative, agile and meta-models. In addition, our methodology supports any business process and the exact figure of customized process models. In addition, all pre-defined models (activities, dependencies, schedule and resources) can be configured and adapted to customer needs.

Currently 55 documentation processes are shown. A distinction is made between process-related and generic documentation processes. The process -related documentation processes represent the complete documentation in accordance with process model specifications. The generic documentation processes were developed based on specific requirements, such as IEE, ISO or MIL-STD-498 for military requirements. In addition to the process-related documentation processes, there are seven published generic documentation processes integrated in the Cost Xpert Tool Suite and mapped to specification. All documentation processes involve the creation of separate document sets, with different document types and varying degrees, which affect the total estimated cost and total time required for a software project.

Factors/cost drivers are also called Soft-Facts. Soft-Facts are identified and evaluated by estimation methods. The best known estimation method is COCOMO II. Cost Xpert is co-author of the COCOMO II method and we are the only vendor that reflects all Soft-Facts according to specification (currently 22). Furthermore, CX has identified other factors by research and analysis, and assures systematic review based on exact criteria. A total of 64 factors are currently integrated. The factors are evaluated with the industry average. General cost drivers, such as organization, personnel, tasks, project, platform, product and other project-specific factors (e.g. for projects taken from the Internet, UML modeling, data migration and user training), are taken into account.

The Soft-Facts can be evaluated as follows:

• Verly Low
• Low
• Nominal
• High
• Very High
• Extra High

Using standardized criteria for each Soft-Fact, Cost Xpert assures a personnel-independent evaluation.

Constraints allow granular adjustments and provide additional opportunities to further optimize the estimate. Project-specific situations not presented yet, are shown here.

Typical constraints:

• Time-Cost Tradeoff
• Risks for plans and requirements
• The risks of integration and testing
• Risk of overlap in the project
• Risks in the project (Requirements Evolution: Change Requests and Requirements)
• Response time of the customer

Cost Xpert Tool Suite uses the Slider Cushion (= buffer) to incorporate a risk buffer.

Cost Xpert supports all major industry standards, such as SEI CMM/CMMI, EN/ISO 15504 (SPICE) and product quality standards, such as EN/ISO 9126, EN/ISO 1598. All relevant quality methods that have an influence on effort, time and cost, are integrated in the Tool Suite. These methods will be considered automatically by our expert system.

All methods and models can be adapted to company-specific factors (e.g. picture of a company's own process model) and/or their own methods and models are shown. No source code changes are involved. The customizations are automatically included in further updates/upgrades. This improves estimation accuracy up to ± 10%.

All methods and models can be calibrated to specific customer environments. After completion of 8 - 10 client projects, a sufficient data base exists and calibration can be performed. This ensures the highest estimation accuracy of all results. Usually, the difference between estimated and actual numbers, as a result of calibration, is as little as ± 5%.

Project and customer-specific factors are considered.

These include, for example, technologies used, external and/or internal cost rates, labor model, and the percentage of cost increases.

The Cost Xpert Tool Suite uses the feature of Time-Cost-Tradeoff (solution of trade-off between time and cost). Based on the scientific method COCOMO, our expertise allows estimation of the project based on the minimum time required compared to the minimum cost. The shorter the time required, the more resources are needed and this leads to an increase of the cost, and vice versa.

Cost Xpert has the ability to determine the optimal course of the project based on the given team sizes. Furthermore, the minimum staffing requirements are determined, (e.g. the minimum number of project participants absolutely necessary for the successful implementation of the IT/Software project, or the maximum number of project participants that can not accelerate the project any further, despite more deployment resources). This will assess if the designated team size is sufficient for the proposed project.

For all projects that take longer than a year, a cost increase is taken into account based on the entered percentage value.