Released on = May 14, 2007, 5:04 am

Press Release Author = TechnoPark Corp.

Industry = Software

Press Release Summary = When it comes to developing software, accurate projections
are 80% of the challenge. In an effort to improvement its internal budgeting and to
further reduce surprises to clients, TechnoPark Corp. went on a quest to find the
most successful method of estimating project cost and duration at the start of each
project.

Press Release Body = In March 2007, a modified Cocomo II model went into operation
at TechnoPark Corp. Read on to learn more on the secrets of effective project
estimation as revealed by this successful U.S.-based outsourcing software
development firm.

Pre-sales estimation of project costs and durations has been a software dilemma that
started with the profession itself. Despite all good intentions, Murphy's Law seems
to leave everyone room to be unhappy about something. Customers expect accuracy and
often are disappointed even by what software companies consider minor post-sales
adjustments. IT project managers dread giving pre-sales estimates because they know
that just about every project has hidden work.

The burning question has been, "Is it possible to make an accurate estimation before
the project architecture is built?"

The dream answer of "YES" is all the more desirable for outsourcing software firms,
such as TechnoPark Corp., because accuracy is also related to trust and reputation,
the cornerstone qualities of any outsourcing company.

Since the 1970s, there have been many attempts to attain this dream of accurate
pre-sales estimations of projects. None however have stood up to the rigors of real
world challenges and client expectations.

Today, TechnoPark Corp. shares its successful experience in the fine art of
pre-sales estimation.

First, let's review the basis of the estimation process. There are some common
mistakes and some important issues ignored by many estimators.

A common initial mistake by software development companies is that they estimate the
project as if everything will go "just right." However, it shall not. It is best to
estimate the reality of the process, and not some Pollyannaish scenario. Risks ought
to be the first things analyzed. Any estimation not based on analysis of all
probable risks, in conjunction with a company's true capabilities, inevitably will
result in an estimation of one's hopes and wishes and not probability.

According to the new model by TechnoPark Corp. a requirements-based model is the
most suitable for pre-sales estimation. The source lines of code (SLOC) model,
popular in the 1980s-90s, proves to not be effective any longer as coding is
significantly more complex and interactive than the number of lines of a program.
The SLOC model admittedly still helps with measuring the efforts of a completed
project, but that doesn't help much with estimating before the coding begins.

Requirements-based estimation, on the other hand, accounts in advance for a
project's features, risks and complexity. Analysis of the requirements provides an
estimator with a more abstract but accurate vision, as the estimator views the whole
project.

Requirements-based estimation however is not the solution either according to the
new model by TechnoPark Corp. Pre-sales estimation needs a general understanding of
the project but also needs to account for the details, an area where
requirements-based modeling comes up short.

Another golden rule of estimating reads: Estimate the diapason or range, not the
precise figure. It usually is impossible to count the precise size of efforts and
get a correct estimation at the pre-sales phase. It is better to estimate the
spectrum of possibilities and set aside more precise estimation for detailed
examination of the project.

In order to get the diapason, three figures for each task are needed: Worst Case
(WC) is the maximum amount of person-hours needed to implement the feature and
depicts the situation when everything is going wrong; Best Case (BC) is an
optimistic estimation providing minimum amount of person-hours; and Most Likely (ML)
depicts the situation which is the most probable in an estimators' assessment, which
may be close to either the worst or best case.

"At TechnoPark Corp., we involve three developers each time estimation is
facilitated. Two of them provide their versions of WC, BC and ML estimations, and
the third one estimates complexity and function points. When counting the diapason
of person-hours, we use a number of additional coefficients such as maturity of
process, required software reliability, programming language experience, etcetera.
After all necessary data are entered, automated counting is implemented by the
system based on COCOMO II", explains Victoria Malinovskaya, the estimation
facilitator at TechnoPark Corp.

COCOMO II, or the Constructive Cost Model, is growing in popularity as an estimation
model. Its first version, COCOMO 81, was introduced in 1981 by Barry Boehm. The
model is used for estimating the number of person-hours and person-months it will
take to develop a software product. The first version was based on SLOC counting.
COCOMO II appeared in the 1990s.

The power behind COCOMO II is that it is based on function points instead of SLOC. A
function point is a rough estimate of a unit of delivered functionality of a
software project. To calculate the number of function points for a software project,
one counts all of the user inputs, user outputs, user inquiries, number of files and
number of external interfaces, dividing them all into simple, average and complex
categories.

COCOMO II coefficients and formulas are clear and useful for software development
companies, both big and small. The model offered by TechnoPark Corp. is based on
COCOMO II with only small fluctuations making it more suitable for outsourcing
software development companies.

TechnoPark Corp. has adapted the COCOMO II approach to client costing with great
success.

"With COCOMO II, we have helped the company reduce losses caused by understated
estimations by almost 70%," Malinovskaya said.

About the company

TechnoPark Corp. is an outsourcing software development firm headquartered in
Naples, Florida, USA. Its software development center is based in the Ukraine,
Eastern Europe. TechnoPark Corp.\'s areas of expertise are Online Payments, VoIP
Technologies, Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), and Data Warehousing. The
company develops in Microsoft .Net, Java, Ajax, Flex/Flash, C++ and LAMP, among
others. For more information, visit www.technoparkcorp.com.



Web Site = http://www.technoparkcorp.com

Contact Details = 568, 9th Street, South Suite 202
Naples, Florida 34102
United States of America
tel (239) 243 0206
fax (239) 236 0738
sales@technoparkcorp.com