Business benefit of software process improvement Presentation –Johan Andersson –Christian Lindblom

Proof of benefits from software process improvement Often quoted examples –US Air Force Logistics Command: invested ~$5 million direct savings ~$2 million –Hughes Aircraft: invested ~$0.5 million over one year saved ~$2 million –Raytheon: invested ~$1 million over four years saved ~$16 million Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Results of software process improvements Improved product quality Shorter time to market More productivity Which in turn leads to saved money Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence given in book –7 case studies –4 Europe –3 USA Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from Europe Quality initiatives/studies –European Systems and Software Initiative (ESSI) –IBM’s European software development benchmark Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from Europe Improving the project estimation process –Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SPA –Formal specification for non-functional requirements –Allowed for tracing impact on development time throughout development cycles –With each iteration more data is gathered allowing for better estimates –Applied experimentally to six projects, all showing lower deviation from estimates –Better results could be related to “luck”, low number of non-functional requirements Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from Europe Using formal specification methods to improve subcontracting methods –ENEL SPA CRA –Improved structure of requirements specification allowing for improved maintainability of outsourced projects –Two similar projects tracked the one with improved specifications got a reduced cost –Improved requirements specifications simplified acceptance phase –Better results for the project where improvements were made can be due to other factors Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from Europe Introduction to configuration management –Datamat Ingegneria dei Sistemi SpA –Introduced configuration management in the development of financial products –Initially began with studying the objects that were to be managed –Showed improvements in managing change, reproducibility of product releases, validation of product versions and the passing of components between workers –Results could be due to improved knowledge about the objects that were to be managed Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from Europe Establishing a software process organizational and management infrastructure –Computer-Logic SA –Used CMM for validation of the company –Tried to make up for the weak parts –Benefited from a general improvement of the company's infrastructure –Could be the improved quality awareness that caused the improvement Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from the USA Quality organisation –The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from the USA Software Engineering Division at Hughes Aircraft –Started using CMM to evaluate themselves continuously –Decisions of improvements based in the fault found during assessments –Improved quality in general –Knowledge about things to improve are always helpful –Can improvements actually be seen from year to year after several years of use? Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from the USA Raytheon: another pioneer of software process improvement –Adopted a three-phased paradigm for process improvement –Conducted a self-assessment and where rated at level 1 –Initiated a process improvement program –Created an organizational infrastructure to support process improvement –resulted in 7.7 times more money saved than invested and a two-fold increase in productivity Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Evidence from the USA Space Shuttle Onboard Software –Poor project management, especially the inability to manage within the constraints set by cost, schedule, functionality and quality –Driving projects from schedule, not quality requirements –Failure to control the contents of requirements and software product baselines –Failure to track errors and to make progress changes that eliminate their causes Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Lessons learned Alignment with business needs and customer satisfaction Focused investment makes significant benefits possible Demonstrate the benefits Benefits will materialize in the mid to long term Take an incremental approach Sell the idea to the whole organization Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

General questions raised To few case studies No criticism towards the results Only success stories Necessity of separating European and American companies? Do the American and European companies differ in their reasoning for attempting quality improvements? Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona

Epilogue Process maturity: another buzzword The role of standards Industrialization of software development What is the next step? Blekinge Institute of Technology SE Karlskrona