The Issue:

Very few organizations consider themselves to be even "adequate" at project estimation.  Even within companies that have estimation practices that support their business needs, there are few individuals who can effectively support the company.

The problem seems to lie in a variety of areas:

•  Executive Business Level
Senior executives in companies do not seem to trust the estimation processes used by their groups and may overrule the results when they contradict the goals of the organization or imply that these goals cannot be met at the level of effort and cost the executives are willing to pay.

•  Project Level
Few projects seem to be driven to collect the data they need to fully understand and calibrate their performance.  There are many reasons why this occurs

•  Personal Skill Level
Few people within companies have the technical, interpersonal, and political skills needed to

 

The Solution:

The challenges of implementing effective estimation processes cannot be solved by simply sending a few people to a training class.  Fixing this problem requires an holistic approach that addresses skills and behaviors, organizational pressures and project priorities.  While we have, and deliver, highly effective off-the-shelf solutions, we are more commonly asked to diagnose and build solutions specific to the constraints of the particular client.

We find ROI on this activity to be at the orders-of-magnitude level