Date: Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Time: 10:00 a.m.- 2:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
Location: The Westin Palo Alto
675 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, California 94301
650.321.4422
Contact Jackie Farritor to attend this free event (jackie.farritor@oracle.com), 303.334.6808.
Join us for a FREE Crystal Ball Public Seminar for Cost Estimation . This half-day event will feature Andy Lathrop, Solution Specialist for Oracle's Crystal Ball; Alan Gorlick, Professor at the University of Phoenix; and Ross Hunt of Galorath.
Topics and Speakers
Speaker: Andy Lathrop, Solutions Specialist, Oracle’s Crystal Ball Global Business Unit
Using simulation techniques can help manage risk and increase accuracy in cost and schedule analysis. Learn an overview of Crystal Ball and how this tool can incorporate the inherent uncertainty in cost estimates to perform scenario-based risk analysis and optimization.
Speaker: Ross Hunt, Galorath Incorporated
Risk and Uncertainty is most prevalent at the early stages of any acquisition or development activity and may affect both the schedule and cost of delivering a project. That uncertainty often dictates that the PMO, development managers or Estimation Center of Excellent (COE) dilute the deliverable aspects of a body of work in order to minimize the cost growth or schedule slippage.
The magnitude of these contingency management mechanisms can be minimized if a realistic and robust mechanism is employed to define suitable targets for effort, schedule, cost, and resources and a mechanism is put in place to monitor these targets and to manage the inherent uncertainty.
SEER for Software, when used in conjunction with Crystal Ball ensures that informed decisions are made early. These decisions are sanity checked against both company history and industry knowledge bases significantly increasing the fidelity of an organizations forecast. This process significantly increases the number of projects that are delivered on-time, within budget and at promised functionality.
We will describe how Galorath through the application of both SEER’s suite of project portfolio planning products and the Crystal Ball tool set can better inform procurement, help management decide all the trade-offs of buying a package, outsourcing or internal development and provide better prioritization data helping teams decide which projects are funded.
Speaker: Alan Gorlick, Professor, University of Phoenix
When manufacturing costs are subject to random variables related to process, physics, and design constraints, risk management can be more important for controlling costs than supply chain optimization, sophisticated procurement, or production planning strategies. In that environment, Monte Carlo simulation with Crystal Ball enables dynamic analysis of the stochastic models that correlate with cash flow at risk. Management can thus forecast cash flow over a range of scenarios, as well as evaluating hedging alternatives.
By expressing risk in terms of cash flow instead of physics or long term corporate valuation, this presentation is aimed at operating managers responsible for estimating and controlling costs, ensuring quality, manipulating schedules, and most importantly, managing cash flow and return on invested capital. Specifics include:
•Background on cash flow at risk
•Applying comparative advantage to risk management
•Costs imposed by the capital markets for bearing risks that should be hedged
•The role of real options in cost management
•Running the simulation
•Evaluating the results for effective cost management
Andy Lathrop
Andy Lathrop is a solution specialist for Oracle’s Crystal Ball Global Business unit. Andy enjoys using, communicating, and teaching Crystal Ball’s unique decision support capabilities, especially in the areas of cost estimation, finance, and portfolio management. Besides Crystal Ball, Andy has experience in discrete event simulation and marketing return on investment analysis, as well as mathematics and computer science teaching at the college level. Prior to joining Oracle, Andy worked in the Army Corps of Engineers, Accenture, and the non-profit sector. He holds BS and MS degrees in operations research from the US Military Academy and the Colorado School of Mines, respectively.
Ross Hunt
Ross Hunt is a 30+ year veteran in the software, systems and networking technology businesses. Since 2005 his focus has been in the IT Governance space with an emphasis in software and IT infrastructure project estimation and planning. Prior to that he spent over 10 years as an entrepreneur launching and securing investment capital for new enterprise software and communications companies. He begin his career as a sales representative in the Data Processing Division of IBM and invested 20 years in numerous senior sales and marketing leadership roles building Hewlett Packard’s systems and services businesses.
Alan Gorlick
Alan E Gorlick is a financial consultant and University of Phoenix faculty member. He teaches MBA and undergraduate finance, economics, and strategy. Gorlick has significant executive level and consulting experience in international high tech business, corporate finance, and personal investments. His expertise includes strategy, marketing & sales, and technology risk & return, as well as using technology to enhance shareholder value, create strategic options or raise total factor productivity. He has had numerous articles published in several business and technical journals.
His previous experience includes CEO of a venture funded high tech company, COO of a NASDAQ traded high tech firm, and economic development consulting. He has also taught at Cal Berkeley, University of St. Thomas (MN), Metro State University (MN), and University of South Florida, where he holds seminars in Finance for the Non Financial Manager.
This event will take place in Palo Alto, CA on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008, from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
(Pacific Time) at the The Westin Palo Alto. Lunch will be provided.
For
more information and to register for this event, contact Jackie Farritor (jackie.farritor@oracle.com), 303.334.6808.
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