1. What is the entry criteria for 'Warranty Support' ? 2. Is the support (helpdesk/bug fixes) extended during 'Implementation' or 'Go Live' part of Warranty or Acceptance ? 3. Can we estimate Warranty Support , How ? Saving Changes...
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Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Anonymous, are you asking this from the context of a vendor or a customer? Warranty and Support are not typically used together at the same time. That is, Warranty is a separate item, as a legal term and as a business term, and Warranty has a separate meaning all on its own, as does Support. From a vendor perspective, it is common to provide a Warranty to the customer stating that the product is or will be held defect free for a period of time. This is different from Support which can be offered via a support plan and typically provides other things to the customer via the Support Plan terms and conditions. Can you re-post and clarify your question..? I would be happy to try again at an answer. Regards. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Daniel SwiftDevelopment Project Manager| Web Technology GroupLondon, United Kingdom
Hi Mark
I am working as a software development PM in a software house dealing with government clients. I would particularly like to know about methods of estimating warranty costs for my projects.
My current employer prefers a a fixed percentage (ie 10%) of development, testing, and deployment costs. This method has been implemented in an arbitrary fashion by my employer so I would like to find something more scientific.
Is there other ways out there such as deriving costs from system complexity as identified through number of requirements or lines of code? Furthermore is there a one-size fits all method of determining a warranty costs?
I look forward to hearing your reposnse. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Hi Daniel, there are many approaches used in estimating warranty costs. Some of these approaches, especially for hardware and firmware, use statistical techniques based upon the Warranty Period and the Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) for the product. There are numerous books and articles on this subject, especially related to product (not software) warranties. You mentioned that your employer is interested in more scientific methods for estimating warranty costs. For software, the techniques are a bit different as software typically does not have a MTTF, rather the software works or it doesn't work. Lines of code may, or may not, be a useful metric. For estimating the warranty costs of software systems, many software developers use historical analysis to arrive at an appropriate fixed percentage cost. For example, based upon the Warranty Period that you provide to your customers, say three months, and based upon expected warranty work and costs to be incurred, a fixed percentage can be arrived at to determine an expected Warranty Cost. Based upon your historical analysis you may very well come up with a fixed percent, say 10%, of development, testing, and deployment costs to use as an estimate. This only becomes arbitrary if it is not based upon analysis and not subject to historical review. I hope we hear and learn from others. That is the approach for software warranty that I am most familiar with. Great post and good luck. Saving Changes...
