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IT Project Estimation: A Practical Guide to the Costing of Software

by Paul Coombs
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003
184 pp., illus. 92 b/w, plus CD-ROM. Paper, £30.00
ISBN 0-521-53285-X.

Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, University Center MI 48710 USA

mosher@svsu.edu

Though intended for software engineers in an industrial setting, this book is of use to those of us who do interactive artwork, especially if it can sometimes be a long-term project or one that involves multiple programmers. The hypothetical project could be a website-as-artwork; it might be a media-rich multimedia project, or a heavily visual hypertext. It might even be an interactive environment where sensors react to the presence of participants with a series of events; Steven Wilson of San Francisco is one distinguished artist who develops complex projects in this manner that come to mind.

An artist using computers quickly realizes the benefit of a methodical development process. Yet there is also the part that precedes it, the estimate, which if sufficiently accurate can secure the required funds to carry the project to fruition. If inaccurate, the project can turn into a nightmare. This book should be consulted as a guide to project estimation and figuring out just what the project might cost.

Software engineer Paul Coombs, now a consultant, has developed software for Reuters, the BBC, EMI, London Underground, British Airways, and the systems developer Logica, has written this guide to project estimation. Coombs——cheerful and slightly flippant at times——announces over the course of the book a dozen Blindingly Obvious Rules of Estimation, and then provides an exegesis of each rule. Coombs continually reminds the reader to realize that it's an estimation that the engineer is called upon to provide. It can approach, but probably never attain, one hundred per cent accuracy.

The reader is given a process of detailed project planning to determine the resource dependencies of the project's individual tasks. The book discusses risks and building in contingencies to deal with them, the costs of staff and capital, and of anticipating cash flow and prices. Attention is then given to reviewing the estimates, maintaining the model that has been constructed, and finally evaluating its success. There follows a believable case study, instructions for using the cost model template on the CD-ROM that comes in the book's back cover, and various other resources and models that may be of use to the reader.

This reviewer's sole complaint about IT Project Estimation is that the accompanying CD-ROM, which contains an estimating template built in Microsoft Excel, runs only under Windows. This prevents its use by the Macintosh owners among the many technological artists who might find this book useful and valuable.

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