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   Circa Estimation and Planning Software
 
  Circa is a powerful and sophisticated estimation and planning application for scheduling, managing, tracking and controlling software projects.  

  

 

 
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Project Management

Define project terms of reference, set up a project calendar and configure project properties (such as manager, sponsor, client, start and end dates, budget, overhead levels and contingency).

Password protect sensitive project information including financial, resource or metric data.

Import and export templates to share metrics and useful data between projects.

In addition to a comprehensive help system Circa incorporates a Navigator which provides concise explanations and shortcuts to key features – great for novice or infrequent users!
 
 
Software Requirements

Understand requirements and scope the project using software artifacts. Work at the concept (analysis) or concrete (design) level.

Create software artifacts within Circa or import them using XMI from any UML CASE tool.

Set qualifiers (size, complexity, reuse and genericity), apply technologies, define the baseline (new or modification) and choose a priority. Position artifacts within a package structure.

Alternatively use Circa’s auto populate feature to produce rapid first-cut estimates at the bid stage of a project.
 
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Production Activities

Specify production artifacts to take account of creative content and production activities such as developing a help system, designing product branding, integration of software and hardware or staff training.

Each production artifact is given an identification code, detailed description, priority and optionally a link to an external document. Specify either internal effort or an outsourced cost.

Use the Activity Detail window to compare the amount of production and software effort.
 
 
Resource Management

Define resources in terms of their availability and rates of pay. Indicate their skill levels in each of the development activities. Optionally import resource information from MS Project.

Allocate resources to project teams as workers. Assign workers to tasks in the project schedule. Use the colour-coding on the Resource Loading chart to establish whether any of the resources are overworked or under utilised.

Establish the best team size for individual tasks or the entire project using the Optimum Resource chart.
 
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Risk Assessment

Identify and assess the level of risk exposure for a project. Describe each risk, state its probability (likelihood of firing) and its level of impact, and document a contingency plan. Circa will suggest a priority level for each risk.

Circa combines all the risk information to derive an appropriate level of contingency to be applied to project estimates.

View the Risk chart to ascertain the probability of project completion within a given timeframe. The risk chart offers a range of possible durations depending on whether an optimistic, realistic or pessimistic outlook is taken.
 
 
Defect Tracking

Log defects in software or production activities.

Assess the effort and cost associated with investigating, correcting and re-testing project defects. Document the nature of the problem, who reported the defect and when. Assign a priority and track the status and severity of the defect.

Allocate defects to tasks to schedule their investigation and resolution.

When a defect has been addressed, record its resolution details and test results.

 
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Metrics Calibration

Use built-in productivity metrics to drive estimates of software effort. Define your own metrics or adjust metrics over time to increase estimate accuracy.

Define a set of metrics for each classifier (type of software artifact) including base productivity metric, percentage breakdown by activity and technologies.

Define a set of technologies and indicate their impact on development activities.

Customise the labels associated with development activities, alter the impact of qualifiers and risks and define the activity profile for software defects.
 
 
Project Schedule

Define a development process and schedule work. Drag and drop software and production artifacts, defects and workers to allocate them to tasks. Software and production artifacts can be segmented to split their effort across multiple tasks.

View the project schedule as a Gantt chart and drag tasks to create dependencies. Task progress is reflected in the colour-coding (red for planned, yellow for in progress and green for complete).

Optionally export the tasks, milestones and resource allocations to MS Project.
 
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Accurate Estimates

Produce accurate estimates of effort, person-days, duration and cost for each task, iteration, phase and for the entire project.

Use the Summary window to view estimates as well as a prediction of start and end dates. Use the Activity Detail window to view the amount of production and software effort and to see the software effort apportioned to development activities.

Gather and record actuals to monitor and control project progress. Use the Variances window to analyse differences between estimates and actuals.

 

 
 
Management Reporting

Run a project validation report to check key project indicators such as budget and deadlines.

Produce detailed management information reports in HTML and MS Excel formats. Reports can contain all of the information entered into Circa, including details of software and production artifacts, defects, resources, risks and metrics as well as estimates at task, iteration, phase and project levels.

Create a custom report format by selecting which sections, tables and columns to include.
 
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