|
![[Français]](_derived/eng_fr.htm_cmp_compass010_vbtn.gif)
| |
|
|
Calculating Measurement Effectiveness
Preparing CMMI level 4&5 from a M&A perspective
Benchmarking is an essential control mechanism for
management.
Improving Project Planning and Control: A 10-Step Process
Making Metrics Practical in the Development Process
A European intitiative for benchmarking
Do-it-yourself Benchmarking
Early&Quick Function Point
3.0: "smart" functionel size estimation
Rule’s Relative
Size Scale: estimate early to optimize performance
Ingredients for success and the economic case for software metrics
|
|
|
|
 |
Calculating Measurement
Effectiveness
A measurement
process is more and more becoming a required component in the
management tool set. Despite increased commitment of resources to an
organizational measurement process, few organizations include a
means for quantifying and improving the effectiveness of their
measurement process within the ongoing business activities. This
paper presents an integrated framework for quantifying the
effectiveness of a measurement program through a periodic assessment
activity. Measurement effectiveness is quantified by examining the
extent to which the measurement process goals and objectives are
met; and the extent to which managers utilize measurement
information during decision-making. This assessment process can be
an integrated component of an organizational measurement process.
The assessment framework presented here is based on a measurement
process that follows the Quality Circle of Plan-Do-Study-Act, with
the assessment framework providing an independent assessment of how
well the entire process is being performed. The paper presents a
step-wise approach for planning and conducting the assessment.
Top
|
|
|
|
 |
Preparing for CMMI levels 4 & 5 from a Measurement & Analysis perspective
You would like to introduce new technologies, while reducing risk?
You would like to adapt to meet your customers' needs?
But are you actually ready to do this? How can you minimise the risks
when you start such an initiative?
The purpose of this presentation is to show how the "High Maturity Level"
initiative (the levels 4&5 of the CMMI) is part of a global approach
for improving organizational performances.
-
Understand the critical process performance.
-
Assign objectives (they can disrupt from the past due to
business stakes).
-
Verify objective achievement
|
|
|
|
 |
Benchmarking as an essential control mechanism for
management
A great number of large organisations already outsourced the IT
activities or is thinking about outsourcing. Even outsourcing companies
in some cases using specific ways of outsourcing IT like near-shore or
offshore. Due to the economic situation and the need to prove
shareholder value, mostly cost drivers are the principle the driver for
these activities. But are these activities so beneficial, are they not
introducing other risks or is it all opportunity?
Basis is a measurement model for controlling outsourcing or
investigating the cost benefit ratio for outsourcing is introduced. Key
issue is project delivery rate. Benchmarking is a good way to compare
productivity rates. But first what is benchmarking? The principles of
benchmarking will be explained based on the definitions of the
International Software Benchmarking Standards Group.
Based on a questionnaire data is gathered from all over the world to
fill the benchmarking database for both activities important for the
software industry: New & Enhancement Projects and Maintenance & Support.
The procedures of gathering, validating an analysis will be explaining
and of course how this information can be assessed by commercial,
governmental and research organisations.
Based on benchmarking data, the government of Victoria (Australia)
developed an outsourcing approach, SouthernSCOPE.
Managers, controllers and auditors should use benchmarking and the
supporting tools to check whether a proposal is “realistic” in terms of
hours effort and duration. The benchmark data of the ISBSG repository
can be used to feed the tool.
|
|
|
|
 |
Improving Project Planning and Control: A 10-Step Process
In a
recent study of technology projects, 61% of the projects analyzed were
deemed to have failed. More than three quarters blew their schedules by
30% or more; over half substantially exceeded their budgets. The
consequences of failed, delayed or over-budget projects can be
significant. Companies can miss a window of opportunity, and provide an
opening to competitors. Less dire consequences will almost certainly
include reduced credibility, increased scrutiny, stringent budget
control, high turnover, and sleepless nights. Yet true breakthroughs in
project estimation have been few and far between, despite the severe
penalties imposed as a result of faulty or incomplete planning.
An
effective project estimate balances functionality with feasibility. How
well does the design address requirements and specifications, and can we
allocate or acquire the expertise and staffing required to get the
product to market on time and at a reasonable cost? The discussion which
follows focuses on how to develop more accurate estimates earlier in the
design process, improve and accelerate go/no-go and trade-off decisions,
and develop realistic and achievable expectations for project costs,
schedules, risks, and resources.
The
presentation will begin with an examination of why so many projects
fail, including:
§
Insufficient up-front planning
§
Projecting effort and timetables based on limited, siloed project data
§
Failure to update the plan and estimates as underlying assumptions
change
§
Over or under-compensating for risk and unknowns (padding) with informal
and highly individualized “rules of thumb”
Many
elements must be weighed and considered in determining the structure of
a project: customer requirements and specifications; architecture;
quality standards; staffing levels, expertise, and availability.
Estimation processes that are integrated with development processes help
ensure that project plans are credible and achievable, meet or exceed
customer expectations, and support other management activities by
providing accurate and timely planning information.
What
follows is a 10-Step Estimation Process which will enable
organizations to:
1) improve the accuracy of project estimates early on,
when many variables are unknown or undefined.
2) ensure that plans
and estimates are adjusted and the experience captured as a project
moves from design through delivery.
Top
|
|
|
|
 |
Making Metrics Practical in the Development Process
Metrics
need to be extremely practical. They need to obviously be of everyday
use to the troops. Metrics need to help us win, to beat the deadline, to
deliver great quality, to deliver competitive products and business
results. There are some widespread metrics practices, that I want to
warn you about, like measuring what is easy - rather than measuring what
is 'right'. Like measuring at the end, rather than in process. There
are some powerful principles that I want to tell you about - like
deriving metrics from top down critical management metrics. Like making
explicit connections between related metrics. This talk will consciously
avoid conventional metrics thinking. It will try to make you feel guilty
about some practices your organization takes for granted. The talk will
try to give you a new agenda for metrics that will help you exploit
their power, and make your organization more competitive - in the
business sense, not the academic sense.
|
|
|
|
 |
A European intitiative for benchmarking
Benchmarking
can play a vital role in assisting managers in making strategic,
operational and tactical decisions. Unfortunately and for a number
of reasons, benchmark data is not regularly used. The purpose of
this roundtable is to begin the creation of a benchmarking
initiative that can be shared across industry and organizations. The
roundtable begins with a presentation of scenarios that demonstrate
the value of benchmarking to managers. This is followed by a
background discussion of available benchmarking organizations and
repositories.
The
roundtable will then discuss these topics:
-
Common
uses and scenarios for benchmarking.
-
Identification of information (ie attributes and
characteristics) and analysis methods required for benchmarking.
-
Difficulties in sharing or exchanging benchmark data, especially
security and confidentiality concerns.
-
Protocole to exchange
benchmark data
The goal of
the roundtable is to promote the usage of benchmarking for decision
making.
This plan will provide a method for ECMS participants to benefit
from existing benchmark repositories and more easily incorporate
available benchmark data into management tasks.
|
|
|
|
 |
Do-it-yourself Benchmarking
Software project benchmarking is usually carried out using external
benchmarking specialist firms investigating all your past projects in
minute detail and finally providing your company with a fully-informed
report. This is how a company learns about its own capability.
However, you do not have to wait for the opportunity of an outsourcing
evaluation in order to start learning about your software development
capability, discovering your strengths and your weaknesses and means of
remedying them. You can do it yourself in your own projects.
This
session aims to explore just how to do that. We will examine how to
handle this internal project benchmarking, looking at the pitfalls of
this practice and how to get results meaningful for the project manager
and his/her senior management.
You
will need to identify the target of your benchmarking – for example,
this could be your project productivity. We will see how to identify the
necessary data and how to collect them. This should be done for a valid
management purpose, so this requires some planning. You will want to
establish and run your own knowledge base. Even if it is on a small
scale, it could already be very effective as a way of helping you
achieve your goals.
|
|
|
|
 |
Early&Quick Function Point 3.0 :
“smart” functional size estimation
Early & Quick Function Points analysis (E&QFP) was
devised in 1997 by the author in order to facilitate IFPUG Function
Points estimation and was presented at the ESCOM 97 conference, for the
first time. Since then, the usage of the method has been spread out all
over the world and E&QFP has probably become the most used functional
size estimation method for Italian Public Administration software
contracts. In 2006 E&QFP has become a registered trademark but the
method is still available for free in the public domain since it is
managed as a “Publicly Available Method”.
The Early & Quick (E&Q) functional size estimation method
is a consistent set of concepts and procedures that, even when applied
to non-detailed system or project information, maintains the overall
structure and the essential concepts of standard functional size
measurement methods.
The E&Q method combines different estimating approaches
in order to provide better estimates of a software system functional
size: it makes use of both analogical and analytical classification of
function types (transactions and data). Moreover, it allows the use of
different levels of detail for different branches of the system
(multilevel approach).
The presentation illustrates the basic concepts of the new version 3.0
of the method as well as a comparison among estimation methods and
statistical results in applying it.
|
|
|
|
 |
Rule’s Relative
Size Scale: estimate early to optimize performance
The ability to estimate resource needs, duration and cost
is crucial to executives choosing where limited funds can best be
invested. Choices depend on the benefit:cost ratio of options. Reliable
early estimates are essential, as often the most influential decisions
are made when information is most sparse and uncertainty is at its peak.
Use of a relative scale to express the functional size of
software developments and enhancements in the categories familiar from
our clothing enables the benefit:cost ratio of proposals to be made
visible early. It typically consumes only a few hours of effort for a
trained and experienced estimator to determine the size of a particular
proposal as a value on the scale ‘extra-extra-small’
to extremely large. That is, on a scale with values ‘XXS, XS, S, M1, M2,
L, XL, XXL, XXXL’.
Pre-prepared tables, calibrated using historic data, enable the
associated effort, staffing, duration and costs to be calculated.
Executives then can quickly decide whether to reject a proposal because
the costs or timescale are disproportionate. Alternatively, they may
accept it along with the inherent uncertainty and risk, or defer a
decision by commissioning a more thorough impact analysis.
Early rejection of infeasible, high-risk or low-margin
proposals enables creative staff to concentrate their efforts on
value-adding activities, and upon those proposals with a higher
benefit:cost margin.
Each step on the relative size scale converts readily to
absolute scales of functional size (including function points and COSMIC
size units). Hence, successive rounds of ever more precise estimates can
be made throughout the software development life-cycle, reducing
uncertainty and providing assurance all is well. Both ‘scope creep’ and
delivery progress can be tracked and related back to the original early
estimates, facilitating risk management and continuous improvement.
|
|
|
|
 |
Ingredients for success and the
economic case for software metrics
Various studies find that most software activities are ‘managed’ to some
extent without any worthwhile measurements. No-one should be surprised,
therefore, at the reported frequency with which software projects fail
to deliver to time and budget, or fail altogether.
But what metrics are vital and, most importantly, why are they not
widely used? And why are so many metrics programmes abandoned?
The Critical Success Factors for a software metrics programme will be
defined and will be used to define a basic set of metrics that should
underpin all software activities. The current state of metrics will be
compared against the demands of the CSF’s. A gap analysis suggests that
improvements are most needed in measurements of work output, in the
recording of effort, and in standards for recording of software project
and deliverable characteristics.
The presentation will also examine the economic case for the
contribution of a successful metrics program to assumed but achievable
improvements in software project performance and in estimating. The
ideas will be illustrated quantitatively for a hypothetical large
company and for the software industry of a typical major European
nation. Examples will be provided from the speaker’s own consulting
experience to illustrate and support the above arguments.
|
|
