Estimation Methods Expert / Costing Benchmark Overhaul (M/F)

Assignment: Estimation Methods Expert / Costing Benchmark Overhaul (M/F)

📍 Nantes (44), hybrid with 2 days of remote working per week 📅 Start as soon as possible, 3 months 🎯 Expert level, more than 10 years' experience

Context

Our client is the IT department of a major player in the retail sector. It is evolving its governance: it wants to move from annual financial steering to operational, capacity-based and multi-year steering, focused on value. To achieve this, it must first make the initial estimation of its projects and changes more reliable.

Today, teams cost projects using inconsistent practices: old, outdated benchmarks, and expert opinions. The result: large gaps between scoping, remaining work and actuals, and no possible comparison between projects.

At the same time, the IT department is going through two transformations:

• the arrival of AI, which is changing productivity on certain phases of the life cycle;
• the coexistence of traditional Project mode and Product/Agile mode.

The assignment

Design, validate and prepare the rollout of the IT department's new estimation framework. Specifically:

• scope the benchmark overhaul project;
• make macro costings (build and run) more reliable at the scoping stage, to feed budget trajectories and the resource plan;
• model the real impact of AI on development, testing and documentation, factoring in both efficiency gains and learning and validation costs;
• propose a model that adapts to the delivery mode (Project or Product/Platform);
• take cross-functional functions into account: architecture, cybersecurity, GDPR;
• define the tooling;
• support change management among project, product and platform teams.

Deliverables

• a summary and analysis of existing benchmarks;
• a new benchmark framework in person-days, with a complexity grid;
• the configuration specifications for a tool;
• a training kit and a costing guide.

Profile sought

Essential: verifiable references in building or overhauling costing benchmarks. Applications without concrete experience on this point will not be considered. Proficiency in both types of costing: Project mode (V-cycle, person-days) and Product mode (capacity-based, velocity). The ability to draw on concrete metrics on the impact of generative and agentic AI on development and testing. A plus: knowledge of function point methods, COSMIC or units of work.

To apply, please send:

• a CV detailing your benchmark experience (client, context, method, result);
• your estimate of the workload in person-days for each of the 4 deliverables;
• your daily rate and availability.

Translated from French · see the original