Everything imagined – intelligent and reliable
The Integrated Methodology driven Estimation bundles all relevant elements of the following six areas including process models, hard facts, soft facts, quality and risk factors and constraints to ensure a detailed, transparent, realistic and secure planning of any IT/software application – easy – intelligent – reliable.
Project Types
Based on a variety of scientifically published methods and models and the analysis of about 35'000 client projects to date, Cost Xpert has identified and implemented practice-relevant project types. They represent a base calibration for their respective domains and assure a high degree of accuracy in its estimates. Using the project type, makes the effort for the calibration based on client’s historical data most often unnecessary.
Project types ensure high estimation accuracy independent of technology and domain
Customer Environment
The range of the customer environment is divided into project-and customer-specific factors. The first-mentioned are for example the process model, the documentation standard and the implemented technology while customer-specific factors consider for example cost rates and the working model.
The entries of this area reflect the customer environment
Process Models
Process models create the Framework for the estimation and define phases, activities, project roles etc. In general, they are separated in sequential, iterative, agile and meta models. IME supports all scientifically published process models and de-facto industry standards up to the accurate mapping of customer specific process models. This enables the support of any business process and ensures detailed transparency about process activities and interaction of activities.
Process models create the framework for estimation
Hard Facts
Hard facts are related to quantifiable sizes and capture the functional size of projects. They allow a determination of the scope of a project and are illustrated in metrics of specific sizing methods. IME supports all scientifically published sizing methods and de-facto industry standards. Sizing methods just work in their specific environment and they are not universally usable for any project typ. With the primary objective of the reliable support of any kind of application Cost Xpert has developed relevant sizing methods for years.
Hard facts capture the functional size of projects
Soft Facts
Soft facts were illustrated on estimation methods. They identify and evaluate project and corporate specific factors. These are general cost drivers like organization, staff, platform, project and product as well as other project specific factors of projects e.g. from the areas of internet, UML modelling, data migration or user training. Precise criteria guarantee an assessment without emotions, for exact results.
Soft facts identify and evaluate specific factors
Quality Methods
Quality methods standardize the defaults for product and process quality. They allow process steps and individual activities to become replicabel in any project situation. IME supports all relevant quality methods in the area of estimation which have an impact on effort, time, and costs. This creates an increase of reliability and is the basis of correction factors for estimations with the simultaneous use of error prevention strategies.
Quality methods consider product and process quality
Risk Management
The risk management offers our customers a formalized risk consideration in IT applications and supports the risk minimization including the determination of threshold value and their sensitivity. Thus, project-related and specific risks are named as well as their tolerance threshold with declaration of the highest risk factor.
Risk analyses support prevention strategies
Constraints
Constraints make a fine adjustment and offer additional possibilities to optimize the estimation. Project specific situations which have not been taken into consideration yet are shown from now on. Typical constraints are e.g. time-cost-tradeoff, requirement evolution or plans and requirements.
Constraints make a fine adjustment
Estimation of applications is complex, but with IME easy to handle.
