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SLIM-Masterplan for Software Portfolio Estimation

SLIM gives you the power to assess multiple software projects with complex interrelationships.

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Software Program and Portfolio Estimation and Risk Assessment

Can you see the big picture on a multi-faceted project or portfolio of projects? Can you quickly determine how changing one project’s scope, staffing or productivity will impact the whole portfolio? Do you know if your current resource capacity can support tomorrow’s demand?

SLIM-MasterPlan, working in concert with the full SLIM Suite, provides a comprehensive solution to these and other challenges.

SLIM-MasterPlan is ideal for analyzing organizational IT portfolios and planning large, complex system integrations. In fact, using its global "what-if simulator," you can easily analyze multiple projects with complex interrelationships and quickly assess alternatives.

SLIM-MasterPlan

Large software program/portfolio estimates and risk assessment

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SLIM-Estimate
Single software project or release estimates
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SLIM-MasterPlan
Aggregated cost, effort, scope, and resource demand estimates
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SLIM-Control
In-progress software project plan or actuals + forecast

How It Fits in the SLIM Ecosystem

IT portfolio planning is hard due to the large number and variety of initiatives. By producing accurate software project estimates before generating detailed plans, SLIM-MasterPlan enables you to identify and minimize risk, saving time and money. Model project dependencies and include non-software costs. Compute and compare multiple What-If scenarios to optimize budgets, schedules, and resource demand.

SLIM’s top-down scope-based methodology helps you quickly identify unrealistic expectations. SLIM-Estimate uses your schedule and budget goals, and a detailed or T-shirt estimate of the scope to reconstruct your internal and vendor “as submitted” estimates.  Import software, hardware, or infrastructure estimates into SLIM-MasterPlan to get an aggregated “big picture” of your roadmap.

Accurate, defensible project estimates are just the beginning. Once the work begins, SLIM-Control shows if your software projects are on course and where corrective action is needed. Use statistical process control techniques to compare project plans against actuals and generate a forecast to complete, keeping your IT Portfolio roadmap up to date.
 

Key Features

Software Program Schedule & Staffing

Aggregate software project cost, duration, team size, and scope estimates for large programs and portfolios to visualize the entire roadmap.

  • Use the Program Builder to create a hierarchy of related projects and get cost, schedule, and staffing totals at various levels
  • Model project dependencies to see the impact of late starts or extended delivery dates on the rest of the portfolio
  • Use the interactive Gantt chart to drill down to project estimates to see the details or make adjustments to software cost, effort, scope, and/or productivity assumptions
  • Estimate non-software activities such as preliminary planning, program management, or training

 

Software program timeline showing multiple vendor releases and supporting tasks; average staff bar chart beneath

What-If Solution Generator

Explore a range of potential IT program and portfolio outcomes to assess the impact of budget cuts, requirements growth and more.

  • Adjust software size, productivity, or peak staff for one or all projects in minutes
  • Increment adjustments by percent increase or decrease, or by value
What-if solution generator that allows changes to software project size, productivity, and staff for multiple projects at once

Software Program Solution Comparison

Log multiple What-If scenarios and compare them to the initial plan to understand software time-effort tradeoffs, then select the estimate that supports your important business goals.

  • Will increasing the team size meet the schedule constraint?
  • Will extending the schedule meet the budget constraint?
  • What if there is a significant increase in the project scope?
Bar charts that compare software program estimates of cost, effort, and duration

Program & Portfolio Risk Probability

SLIM's Monte Carlo Simulation computes probability distributions for software project outcomes to get a realistic view of alternative scenarios.

  • Set project uncertainty levels to define low, medium, and high risk ranges with 99% confidence intervals
  • Tag projects and tasks as low, medium, or high risk to compute the software program's combined risk
  • Assess the overall program risk (vertical black line) for cost, duration, and other key outcomes, then determine the amount of contingency needed to avoid overruns
Software Program or Portfolio rate and cumulative probability charts for cost and duration

SLIM-MasterPlan Benefits

IT portfolio planning

Aggregate single project or release cost, schedule, scope, and effort at multiple levels of the portfolio hierarchy

Interactive big picture view

Easily modify project start dates, establish dependencies, and drill down to view estimate details

What-If Analysis

See how changes in software productivity, size, or staff at the project or release level affect program and portfolio outcomes

IT portfolio risk assessment

Use performance trends to identify software productivity, schedule, and cost estimates that fall outside of acceptable ranges 

Request a Demo

Register for a live demo of SLIM to see how data-driven software estimation and analytics can improve the way your organization plans and delivers software projects. During the session, you’ll see how SLIM uses proven models and industry benchmark data to help teams produce more accurate estimates, manage in-flight projects, and conduct post-project analysis.