Transformational Cost Estimating A New Paradigm Integrating Cost Estimating with Program Management
Walkovitz, D.
Mainstay Software Corporation

Is your cost history database achieving for you all you would like? Are there areas you wish could be improved? Or, have you long since discarded your ideas for attaining optimal value from it since you can't even get the basic information consistently and accurately? What could be done to enable you to get more value from it? If you are like many other estimators, the list of issues below describes your situation:

  • Most data values are collected after the project is complete resulting in: o Less than complete data since much is no longer readily available. o The data you do receive has less value since people who know how it should be normalized for the particular project are no longer available or, if available, cannot recall all that might be necessary.
  • The database architecture cannot be easily updated to accommodate new data elements or approaches.
  • Data from active projects is not available even though it would provide important and current data points even though not completed.
  • Cost, technical, and programmatic data points are located in different locations, geographic or within different electronic systems, thus the data is more time-consuming and difficult to capture.
  • Collection of data after project completion is, in general, time consuming and expensive to capture.

    This paper will demonstrate a new approach to capturing, organizing and utilizing cost, technical, programmatic, and other data. The paper will discuss a new methodology that will address all these issues and more. Specifically, we will describe:

  • How data can be gathered from projects while in process, thus making it less expensive to gather and more meaningful and timely;
  • How the same approach that facilitates effective milestone reviews can synchronously achieve what is optimal for cost estimating history.
  • How data from multiple geographic and system locations can be integrated automatically without any incremental effort or passing of files
  • How textual, image, audio, and video information to support the data itself can be incorporated into the structure;
  • How all this can occur without incremental effort on anyone's part.

    In summary, this paper will provide insights into an approach to cost estimating that will enhance the process while reducing the cost and effort required. It will show how the data capture, organization and integration process can become a by-product of project management rather than a stand-alone function. The foundation of this process was created in conjunction with NASA PA&E.