QSM provides unparalleled support throughout the product acquisition, installation, and implementation process.
For nearly five decades, QSM has helped organizations bring data-driven discipline to software project estimation, tracking, and benchmarking. Our methodology and tools turn project complexity into measurable, defensible outcomes.
Designed for: IT procurement organizations
Successfully procuring software from a vendor can be a heavy lift for both public- and private-sector organizations around the globe.
All too often, vendors deliver software late, over-budget, and with significantly less capability than the contract specified.
Fortunately–with QSM by your side–this problem is entirely preventable.
Our experts will help you establish the objective framework, infrastructure, process and skillset you need to build a world-class quantitative vendor management organization–and put you back in control.
Establish a solid understanding of the system requirements, and use that information to perform an independent “should cost” estimate which explores all practical development strategies a reasonable vendor might propose.
Develop a clear RFP to provide clarity for both vendor and customer. Request that vendors provide a quantified bid that includes system size, schedule, effort, staffing and quality at delivery. Request historical projects to support the bid, and establish monthly reporting metrics, using these same quantifiable measures.
Evaluate all bidders using an objective and transparent process that will hold up under protest scrutiny. Identify low bids and bids that are grossly conservative. Compare these bids to the independent "should cost" estimate to understand variances. Quantify bids and place them into a scoring matrix.
Provide complete transparency into the contract’s execution, including monthly health checks. When performance deviates from the plan, use QSM's adaptive forecasting to create revised estimates in real time–just as your car’s GPS recalibrates when you make a wrong turn.
Both customer and vendor will have a realistic appreciation of the requirements–leading to a better understanding of feasibility.
Identify bidders with little to no chance of success–and quantify these determinations so they can hold up under protest scrutiny.
Identify bidders who provide the best value from a cost, schedule and risk perspective.
Our monthly health checks provide quantitative transparency into contract execution–leaving vendors with no place to hide and no chance for last-minute surprises.
Our forecasting algorithm acts like a GPS–combining real-time requirement updates with actual completion data to determine projected scheduling, cost and reliability.
This natural byproduct of our monthly health checks puts you in the driver’s seat for future procurements.
One of the largest US financial institutions IT department implements Estimation Center of Excellence to stop software project cost overruns and saves over $1.2M.
Case Study · Financial services company with over 30,000 employees
US Federal agency leverages QSM Consulting and SLIM® estimation software to evaluate vendor bid for mission critical project. Analysis showed that the vendor proposal was unattainable; alternative plan reduced software project costs by $600K.
Case Study · US Federal Government Agency