Don't forget to include all the environments that will be needed. For hardware, many organizations use standard server configurations, so costs are easy to determine. You can start with the easier items to estimate, the hardware and software. If you want more features, the cost will increase. In all these approaches, the traditional trade-off triangle among time, cost, and features still applies. There are several approaches to project estimation which can produce results with a high degree of accuracy. My most common answer, 'it depends,' is not satisfying for them or for me, so I am going to explore this topic in depth and offer an approach for estimating implementations of Dynamics CRM, especially the xRM approach which involves using CRM as a development platform for a line of business solution. One of the questions I am asked most frequently by clients is to estimate the cost of a software implementation project.
