Project Clairvoyance

Lawrence is Co-CEO, Quantitative Software Management, Inc. in McLean, Virginia.

  Decision Making   Estimating   Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

Can advances in data-driven estimation turn software project failure into a distant memory? Well, if learning from experience is the key to success, imagine what you could do with real-time access to three decades of research, thousands of projects and more than 600 industry trends.

Bob Dale — standing in the corner of his Midtown office, face flushed with uncertainty, hands nervously cupping a re-gifted magic 8-ball — is about to make the worst decision of his life.

A week ago, Bob’s group was asked to bid on a fixed-price contract for a top financial firm’s marquee software project — six million lines of code and no margin for error. Trouble is: Bob’s never handled a project like this. So there’s no way of knowing whether his estimate — six months, staff of 1,300 — is reasonable or a recipe for disaster. Nervously, our hero sketches a few equations on the back of an envelope and turns the 8-ball on its head. “All signs point to yes.”

Six months from now when the project lies in shambles, beset with cost overruns and unending delays, Bob will remember the precise instant that his professional life took a nose-dive into the Bermuda triangle.

Or maybe not. In an alternate universe, Bob does things slightly differently. Before signing off on the fixed-price bid, our hero consults his estimation …

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