SLIM-Estimate’s rich feature set offers many configuration options and settings. Some work well across a broad range of project sizes and types. Others are suitable only for a small subset of projects (or perhaps, for just a single project).
By design, SLIM-Collaborate offers different features and benefits. Because it has fewer options and relies on preconfigured project templates and configuration sets, estimates are faster and easier to create for the average user. As Back Office administrator, your job is to provide solid templates with settings that work well for a variety of project types. In general, a good template is…. general (as opposed to specific)! Templates are designed to be used by several different projects, so you’ll want to review SLIM-Estimate workbooks carefully before importing them to form the basis for SLIM-Collaborate templates and configuration sets.
Here are a few things to avoid:
•Fixed phase tuning settings. While it may make perfect sense to use fixed time, effort, or phase overlap tuning factors for a single project, these kinds of settings are rarely appropriate for a template that will be used to configure multiple projects. Fixing a phase to 1 month’s duration, 10 months of overlap with an adjacent phase, or exactly 200 person hours of effort may be reasonable when modeling a specific project (or even a group of projects of roughly the same size). But fixed settings prevent the lifecycle phases from scaling automatically with project size. If the template is used to model a very large (or very small) project, fixed values can produce unreasonable or unintended results.
•Average labor rates based on a skill mix from a specific (non-representative) project. In SLIM-Estimate, estimators can supply a single average labor rate or calculate a weighted average labor rate from the skill mix and skill category labor rates set up in the skills allocation dialogs. Regardless of whether your organization plans to break out effort/cost/staff by skill category, it’s a good idea to review both average (summary level) labor rate and the skill category settings in SLIM-Estimate before uploading templates to SLIM-Collaborate. These inputs should be reasonable for the project type being estimated.