Return on Investment

QSM intelligence turns the toughest challenges into resounding success stories.

SLIM Suite Helps Deliver $150 Million System on Time & Meet Quality Standards

Challenges 
A major telecommunications equipment supplier faced a familiar problem: how do managers deliver consistent, repeatable results in a distributed environment? Our client needed to coordinate 20 sub-teams using differing estimation processes that were informal, undocumented, and could not be repeated when desired. Ad hoc processes produced unreliable estimates and products that were late, over budget, and buggy. The completed estimate was then loaded into SLIM-Control to manage project execution against the plan. When project actuals strayed into the yellow control region the team asked questions, identified the problem, and took immediate corrective action to get the project back on track. Calibrating SLIM-Control allowed them to sanity check various options against the team’s proven ability to deliver software. Because the tool made extensive use of their own historical data, the team felt confident in their projections and the SLIM-Control methodology. They even adopted the motto: “SLIM is always right!”
Solution 
To help formalize their estimation process, the equipment supplier purchased SLIM Suite and built a management process around our estimation and control tools. Their first major project involved a top tier buyer of their cellular switching products. Using SLIM-Estimate the client successfully negotiated an aggressive, but achievable schedule.
Outcomes 
Both the developer and the customer were extremely pleased with the project. The $150 million development was delivered on time and met reliability goals while yielding an acceptable profit. A good solution for all parties involved!

Summary

A major telecommunications equipment supplier uses the SLIM-Suite to formalize their estimation process across multiple teams and ultimately deliver a $150 million system on time while meeting reliability goals and yielding an acceptable profit.

Solutions