ACOSM 2010: Earning More with Lower Risks

Earning More with Lower Risks

Ton Dekkers, Galorath International Ltd, (Netherlands)

Abstract

Usually parametric estimation and the related sizing and benchmarking are looked at from the perspective of the customer. In this presentation we look at this from the perspective of the supplier.

The supplier wanted to react on a request for proposal from a governmental organisation. The RfP was referring to a base information system to be delivered in 2 years, additional incremental functionality over the following three years and maintenance and support over the full period of 5 years. The potential size in function points was provided by the customer for both the base part and the releases. Based on these numbers, the customer wanted an all-in price per function point.

The functional requirements were referring to an existing program (multiple applications) that needed to be (re)build to reflect the new political situation and the expected (simplified) legal requirements. The initial thoughts of the supplier were to use the experiences from the past (the referred to applications were build by the supplier) to produce an expert estimate and then use the given size to calculate the price per function point. The supplier had no experience with function points and had the idea the calculated price per function point was too high to offer. This was the reason to invest some time in function points and how this can be used in a proposal.

This presentation describes the steps that have been taken to explain the concepts in the supplier organisation, to verify the size given by the customer, to validate the suppliers’ performance, to benchmark the performance (ISBSG and SEER), to convince experts and management on a new (much higher) pricing, to address risks and constraints and finally to produce the proposal.

Biography

Currently Ton is responsible for the services and development of services with Galorath International Ltd in the UK (a subsidiary of Galorath Inc, US). His work area is basically all locations outside the Americas. Galorath offers services and tools in the area of (project/program) estimation. Ton’s focus is, related to his background, on IT / Software development estimation and control.

Ton started his career in System Development, getting experienced in all disciplines (Construction, Design and Analysis). Beginning 90’s he started consulting companies in process improvement. At that time he recognised the importance of metrics, especially Function Point Analysis (FPA). Ton offered services as a solo ‘independent’ consultant to the own organisation and third parties. In this period he developed an approach to apply FPA in enhancement situations, was involved in the development of Test Point Analysis (estimating effort structured testing based on functional size measurement and created the measurement implementation model MOUSE. End 90’s he moved into Quality Assurance (Software Process Improvement and Auditing), but metrics had still his interest. This is still recognisable in the approach Quality Tailor-Made.

In 2001 Ton wrote a business case showing opportunities of offering measurement services to the own organisation and more important to customers (third parties). This was the start of the Expertise Centre Metrics (later SEC – Sizing, Estimating & Control). SEC now offers professional measurement services to both National and International Organisations. As part of the R&D within SEC he recognised the value of the new size measurement method COSMIC Full Function Points. He brought this method to the Netherlands and promoted this method as the second generation. This made SEC the Experts in that domain.

In 2006 he was asked by Shell to improve their estimating and metrics practice on a global level. His guideline for IT / Software estimation in now part of the global Project Delivery Framework, Shell’s own quality standard for software projects. During his Shell period, he got involved in the development of SEER-IT, a suite for estimating a fully integration IT project released by Galorath Inc in 2008. In March 2008 he joined Galorath International Limited (UK) as Director of Consulting.

His knowledge, experience and enthusiasm made him well known in the measurement community. Ton is a regular speaker on National and International Conferences. A great number of papers and articles are published in proceedings, books, magazines and journals.

He is also a participant in various metrics organisations worldwide, e.g. International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (Immediate Past President), COSMIC (Member International Advisory Committee), Netherlands Software Measurement Association (President) and PMI (Director-At-Large Benchmarking/ISBSG).