estimation to use
For a few years, CBS has been running a television show called Numb3rs. The premise is the standard take off on the brothers-solving-mysteries cliché that has been around since at least the Hardy Boys. Of course, Numbers has some thngs that are different – the boys are employed and older. Don Eppes, the older of the pair, runs a team of FBI agents based in Los Angeles – a fair step above the amateur sleuthing of the Hardy boys. Charlie Eppes, the younger brother, is a math genius and a professor at the fictional “Cal Sci”.
Every week on each episode, Don and his federal agents encounter a problem, usually a problem with a deadline, which is too hard to figure out through ordinary or traditional police work. Set your watch by it; Professor Charlie Eppes and his team of nerdy yet smart mathematicians are able to use some form of advanced mathematics to accomplish a some inventive tasks from deciphering where a kidnapping will happen to the contents of boxes.
And while most of that is the magic of Hollywood, taking lab theory and fiting it into unrealistic time periods with even less realistic amounts of data, there is one portion of Numb3rs that demands admiration. During the hour-long show, the young Professor Eppes must give an explanation to a complex, doctoral-level mathematical system in a way that a team of federal agents can understand. This happens on each television episode with such regularity that the person in the show has begun to expect it; making small jokes and trying to give their own explanations.
Charlie’s explanations are clearly a plot device to convince the audience that his brilliant mathematical insights aren’t simply a weekly deus ex machine. However, just as Charlie has to explain how his math models the real world, the use of software estimation can often seem just as improbable. True, you can sit back and say “Well, the program relies on parametric modeling of our current situation,” but that look is far more likely to generate blank stares than anything else.
Article provided by Galorath, Cost Estimating Software Tools.