In every community event for the past 10 years, there has been a presentation about the software estimation process. Discussing whether estimates are an art or a science, best practices, why they go wrong and presenting interesting ideas such as the no-estimates movement. There seems to be an abundance of information on the subject, yet, the debate is far from over. Software estimation, despised by many, is one of the most contentious subjects, constantly coming up in conversations between developers, project managers, product managers, clients, budget holders and stakeholders.
This talk is split in 3 sections.
In the first section, I will discuss the nature of modern application development and in particular two approaches: project-centric and product-centric application development. I tie those into the modern B2B purchase journey that represents enterprise application development so that participants get an understanding of the end to end process: from budget setting to application conception to delivery to decommission and how this influences everyone involved.
In the second section, I draw from my experience being part of the Digital Solutions team in FFW where I am picking up technical pre-sales activities for new projects. Part of the job is to provide budget indication during the RFP process, the worst possible moment because it’s the moment we have the least amount of information about the work at hand. I will present some of the techniques and best practices I have used to quantify effort, manage risk and minimise uncertainty.
Finally, in the third section, I will dive into suggestions for aspiring agency teams that would like to encourage their clients to shift from project-centric development into product-centric development. Specifically I will discuss the behaviours that should be adopted internally to instil trust to the client, changes that need to be made for successful delivery and early warning signs to evaluate if you are on the right track.
At the end of this talk participants will get an understanding of:
- The differences in processes and expectations for project-centric and product-centric application development
- End to end modern B2B purchase journey which represents enterprise application development
- The best practices for budget estimation for project-centric application development
- The best practices for budget estimation for product-centric application development
- Suggestions for product-centric enablement internally and at the client