ACE offers software delivery services in the form of training and consulting in the following areas: - Delivering fixed price software projects profitably - Helping Global customers in outsourcing to India - Training and mentoring in the areas of requirements engineering, requirements management, estimation, project planning and tracking, project scheduling and so on.

1. Akshaya Centre of Excellence
Striving to transform results
ACE – company profile

2. About ACE
q We are a consulting and training firm providing software delivery excellence
services
q Our mission is to Transform Results and not just rest at applying
methodologies. Our logo conveys that insights possessed by our team
produces results to the business units (In the logo, tree represents business
units and fruits represent results for the business unit)
q Unique characteristic of our organization is that all the members of the team
are hands-on people who have been highly successful in their delivery roles
and are now into consulting and training to pass on their insights. This is
what enables us to be confident of transforming results

3. ACE Contact details
q Website: http://www.acoe.in
q Email: enquiry@acoe.in, nagaraja.gundappa@acoe.in
q Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aceitpm
q Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/aceiptm

4. ACE service portfolio – categories
• Strategic
training
programs
targeted
to
improve
specific
metrics
• FSPS
–
for
future
and
new
project
managers
• ACEPMP
for
experienced
PMs
• Vendor
capability
assessment
for
outsourcing
• Competency
assessment
for
project
managers
• Offshore
project
health
monitoring
• EsFmaFon
accuracy
improvement
• Requirement
clarity
and
completeness
improvement
Consulting
services
Assessment
services
Customized
training
Packaged
training

5. ACE service portfolio – Target audience view
• ACEPMP
–
a
9
separate-­‐
days
package
of
8
courses
for
experienced
PMs
• FSPS
(Framework
of
SoNware
Project
Success)
–
2
day
course
for
future
and
new
project
managers
• Project
manager
competency
assessment
• Strategic
programs
targeted
to
improve
specific
metrics
• Offshore
project
health
monitoring
• Vendor
capability
assessment
for
outsourcing
IS managers
who
outsource
Business
unit heads of
IT service
firms
Experienced
project
managers
Future
project
managers

6. Services for global IS managers
q Offshore project health monitoring
§ We engage with the offshore project in key stages throughout the life
cycle and assess how well, the project is shaping towards successful
completion. We use pre-built health-check guidelines to carry out
assessment. For instance, the interventions would determine –
• If requirement elicitation is resulting in clear and complete requirements
• If design is meeting the non-functional requirements
• If the project is on track for scheduled completion
• If test scenarios considered are adequate and so on.
IS managers in global organizations that have outsourced their projects, need better visibility and control over the
project. In certain contexts, they face shortage of on-site staff and are over-dependent on the off-shore team. This
over dependence poses a high risk and consequences of project failure can be very high. In such situations, ACE
consultant can be thought of as an additional off-shore arm or the off-shore eyes and ears for the customer to gain a
better visibility and control over the projects and maximize possibilities of successful completion.
Improve
project
success rate
with better
visibility and
control over
outsourced
projects

7. …Services for global IS managers
q Vendor capability assessment
§ Not all vendors possess high capability in all aspects of delivery. You have to choose the ones with
highest capability on parameters that matter most to you.
We help you to select your vendors by assessing their delivery capability using our pre-built
assessment model
• Global IT shops looking forward to outsource to India can take our help in their RFI and RFP process to
select the vendors most suited to their needs
• Smaller organizations looking forward to outsource to India, but cannot afford to go with the big names
would find this service especially useful. There are many capable service providers who offer services at
an affordable price but are not highly visible. They can be spotted, assessed and relied upon based on our
services.
Smarter outsourcing –
• Reach low-visibility vendors who are affordable and deliver high quality
• Choose vendors most suited to your needs

8. Services for business unit heads / delivery
heads
q ACE offers services that help delivery heads to overcome their challenges and meet their
objectives
q Delivery heads / Business unit heads are responsible for a number delivery results such as
§ Customer satisfaction and repeat business
§ Increased profits by minimizing overruns in effort, schedule and cost
§ Consistency in quality across the organization unit
q They face many challenges to deliver these results
§ Shortage of staff skilled in project management
§ Inadequacy of processes to ensure estimation accuracy and good requirement management
q ACE services help the delivery heads to meet these challenges and achieve results

9. Services for business unit heads - assessments
q Project manager competency assessment
§ The BU head can benchmark the capabilities of the their project
management staff against industry standards and plan their capability
improvement programs
§ ACE offers a range of assessment methodologies prescribed by the PMCD
(Project Manager Competency Development) framework of PMI. They
include
• Objective type questions that test both knowledge and experiential insights
• Simulation workshops
• Interviews
• Project deliverable review
Benchmark
the capability
of your
project
management
staff

10. …Services for business unit heads –
improving delivery results
q Targeted metric improvement
§ ACE offers packages of programs targeted to improve parameters such as estimation accuracy,
requirement stability, schedule adherence etc.
§ The package involves training, mentoring, process implementation and tracking
§ To improve estimation accuracy, ACE uses originally developed, deliverable-based estimation
methodologies such as MVC points.
§ A requirement engineering framework has been developed by ACE and this framework is used to
bring about an improvement in requirement stability across project teams *
§ ACE has published procedures to create effective schedules and these procedures are implemented to
help project teams to ensure better schedule adherence
* Requirement stability is important even for Agile projects especially in the fixed price project context. Agile experts
recommend that high level requirements be known upfront to be able to estimate and plan the project and details of the
requirements can be explored during specific iterations / sprints. Secondly, requirements should not change within an iteration /
sprint. It requires best practices to ensure this requirement stability even in the context of Agile projects and ACE services help
in achieving this stability.

11. …Services for business unit heads – staff
development
q Strategic project management staff capability development
§ In certain contexts, it is difficult or ineffective or too costly to implement
complete pre-packaged training programs for project managers. In such
circumstances a customized competency development program is more
suitable
§ Customized programs are strategic in nature. They follow a multi-step
program starting with assessment, choosing specific areas of competency
development, targeting competency levels, training, mentoring and measuring
on-the-job performance.
§ Customization also helps in administering training in a combination of
multiple formats that include class room training, e-learning, web based case
study discussions and so on.
Assessments
Selecting
competencies
and levels
Training
Metric
improvement
target
Action plan
implementation
and mentoring
Project
performance
measurements
Improved
delivery
capability -
Reduce project
costs and
increase
customer
satisfaction

12. Services for business unit heads
q Fixed price project profitability
§ Delivery units face stiff challenges in making fixed price projects profitable
mainly because of 3 challenges – estimation accuracy, requirement
instability and schedule overruns.
§ The F3P program targets these three areas to create a turn-around in
profitability
• Training the staff in deliverable-based estimation methodologies and
institutionalizing these methodologies to achieve estimation accuracy
• A requirement engineering framework is used to train the staff in a range of
key practices needed to ensure requirement stability *
• A well-researched procedure for schedule development and tracking for
better schedule adherence
* Requirement stability is important even for Agile projects especially in the fixed price project context. Agile experts
recommend that high level requirements be known upfront to be able to estimate and plan the project and details of the
requirements can be gone into during specific iterations / sprints. Secondly, requirements should not change within an
iteration / sprint. It requires best practices to ensure this requirement stability even in the context of Agile projects and ACE
services help in achieving this stability.
Project cost
saving up to
10%
Estimation
accuracy of
90%

13. Programs for senior project managers
q ACEPMP (Advanced Courses for Excellence in Project
management Practice)
§ A package of 8 individual courses of total 9 days duration
§ The courses cover Requirement Engineering, Estimation, Project
planning, scheduling and tracking, Risk management and Testing
§ Target audience is practicing project managers who have at least
6 months of project management experience and gears them up
to successfully plan and deliver large, complex, global projects.
§ Rich with practices chosen from large successful projects, this
series fast forwards experiential learning by 2 to 4 years
Gear up to
deliver multi-
million dollar,
fixed price
projects

14. Programs for new and future project
managers
q FSPS (Framework of Software Project Success) –
a 2 day workshop
§ Primes a to-be project manager with birds-eye-view of PMBoK,
CMM and takes them through a number of key practices
throughout the software life cycle
§ Key practices teach how to ensure estimation accuracy,
requirement stability, schedule adherence, risk management among
others
§ Uses real-life project case studies to ensure that participants can
apply the practices to real project scenarios
§ Key practices chosen from successful global projects and validated
through cutting-edge research reports and books.
Make a
spectacular
entry into PM
role and
ensure glaring
initial success

15. Profiles of ACE team
q Nagaraja gundappa
§ LinkedIn profile: in.linkedin.com/in/nagarajagundappa
§ Chief consultant, ACE, 20+ years of software industry experience
§ Before ACE
• General Manager in Wipro Technologies (1996 – 2008)
• Project manager in Tata Unisys (Now Tata Infotech) (1993 – 1995)
• Research Fellow in NAL (1990 – 1993)
§ Awards and Honors
• Chariman s award for a project management competency initiative (2007)
• Group president s award - 1997
• Best application award – OMG object world west 97

16. Profiles – Nagaraja Gundappa
q Project management expertise
§ Certified Scrum Master
§ Have delivered significant improvement in delivery results through a project
management competency build up program during 2005 - 2008
• Won the Chairman s award for this initiative
• Results delivered - more than 10% reduction in cost overruns and 10 times reduction in
field error rate.
§ Have taught software project management courses (Applied PMBoK courses) for over
1200 project managers
§ Have delivered large, complex, global projects successfully to customers such as
General Motors, Deloitte and Touche, Dun Bradstreet
§ Have delivered many presentations at industry forums on estimation, project scheduling
and tracking, and project management training

17. Profiles - Nagaraja
q Other expertise
§ Certified black belt in six steps to six sigma
§ Have been a part of task force implementing CMM
§ Have championed organization-wide component reuse programs at Wipro
Technologies and have presented papers on reuse
§ Have lead a J2EE center of Excellence and have groomed more than 60 persons from
legacy background to be level-2 e-business technology architects
§ Have carried out significant research in applying Artificial Intelligence techniques in flight
control system reconfiguration and have presented papers on these topics.

18. Thank you