Industrial Case: What Is a Reasonable Cost and Schedule for a Telecommunications Project Upgrade?

This chapter explains how to establish realistic cost and schedule goals for a large, complex software project. It also explains how to use cost models and benchmarks to determine whether the budget is sufficient to get the job done. Getting everyone to agree on the estimates is an important activity because, when approved, these form the basis of the budgets that will be received once the project gets the ?>go ahead.?> Of course, management will try do the job in the least amount of time for the least amount of money. That is their job. But because the consequences of agreeing to unreasonable cost and schedule estimates are dire, one has to fight for what he thinks is right and for that which he can justify.