Have you ever been excited to discover a new use for something familiar, like learning that lighter fluid can be used to remove ink stains from your clothes?  I recently discovered a way to leverage the tie between SLIM-Estimate and SLIM-DataManager that I was previously unaware of.  

My limited view of SLIM-DataManager as a tool for historical data and SLIM-Estimate as a tool for software project estimation limited my creativity in applying the rich set of capabilities in the entire SLIM tools suite.  I recently observed a more experienced SLIM user use both tools to model a history project where very little data was available, using both applications.  Here is a description of the situation.

Scenario: 

You have gathered metrics from a completed project to serve as the basis of estimation for your next project.  Software size, lifecycle effort, lifecycle duration (phases 1-3), and defects are known, but you do not have a break out of individual phase data.  How can you best model this project and capture the results in SLIM-DataManager?

Solution A: