Publications

Sandia National Laboratories is interested in understanding how data analytics can be applied to business problems, in particular financial management. This project examines how a combination of qualitative and analytical tools can be used to increase the accuracy of cost estimates at the project level. Although the initial scope of the project was to perform analyses on lab- or portfolio- level projections and forecasts, we examined project-level cost estimates for three reasons. First, qualitative and quantitative data were feasible to obtain within the 8-week project time frame. Second, we could develop a thorough enough understanding at this level to provide meaningful recommendations. Third, the results of our project would still be relevant despite undefined changes caused by the Financial Simplification. We performed external research on other companies in industry and on other national labs, internal research at Sandia, and data analysis using ARC and Excel. In total, we conducted twelve interviews, researched three other companies, and applied four analytical techniques.