From the Sales Front

New Speakers Added to QSM Users Conference
Hans Vonk and Michael Mah were recently added to the list of speakers for the 2006 QSM Users Conference. Hans will be updating us on new clients and activity in the European market. Mike will discuss how he successfully applied productivity benchmarking techniques on numerous real-world XP projects and how a company's development approach was transformed using agile methods. Also, the conference agenda, local accommodations, and more can now be found on the Users Conference Details Page. There is no fee to attend. Space is limited, so don't forget to reserve your spot by September 10th. To register, click here (Note: registration is available to QSM clients only).

Upcoming Trade Shows
Below is a schedule of the upcoming trade shows where QSM will be exhibiting in the spring. Please feel free to stop by and see us for a free SLIM demo and more information on our products and services.

If you would like to set up an appointment at one of the upcoming trade shows or for more information regarding SLIM products, services, and training, please contact Keith Ciocco by email at keith_ciocco@qsm.com or phone 703-749-3812.

From the R&D Lab

Don Beckett's "9 Keys to Effectively Managing Software Projects"
Can managing software development be as simple as reading a brief "to-do/not-to-do" list? No. All evidence indicates that software development is especially difficult to manage. If not, why do repeated studies come to these same conclusions that most software projects are

• over budget
• do not meet their schedules
• do not fulfill customer requirements

The 9 Keys addresses issues that are fundamental to all software development and the environment in which it was developed. More than a "to-do" list, they provide the busy business leader with a framework for high-level planning and monitoring. There is no magic here; only guidance about what your expectations should be, what you should monitor, and how you should respond.

Continue reading ...

Don will also be speaking at the upcoming Practical Software Measurement Users Group Conference (PSM) in Vail, Colorado. His presentation is entitled "Developer Based Sizing". PSM Conference details can be found here. To contact Don about future speaking engagements or questions, please email info@qsm.com or call (800) 424-6744.

From the Support Center

QSM Data Call for Trend Lines Update

It’s time to start thinking about the next database update and we’d like to get your input.

Every two to three years, QSM produces a new set of industry trend lines for SLIM-Estimate, SLIM-Control, and SLIM-Metrics. To facilitate this process, we have traditionally gathered anywhere from 400 to nearly 1600 projects from SLIM users, customers of our benchmarking services, and QSM consultants or distributors in the United States, Europe, and Asia. In recent years we’ve expanded our data collection efforts, collecting an average of 500 projects per year for the past six years.

While we have our own list of goals, having some feedback from SLIM users would help us do a better job of improving our tools and answering your questions.

Keeping any software database in step with the latest languages, tools, and methods is always a challenge.  The research we recently completed for our QSM IT Almanac showed that average cycle time has declined by a factor of almost 3 since the mid-1990’s. But although projects are finishing faster, there is still a significant time lag before the latest technologies find their way into the database. This problem is hardly unique to QSM. It occurs for several reasons:

1. The projects themselves take an average of 7-9 months to complete. Once a project is complete, an organization must still collect and validate project time, effort, and size data (at a minimum). This process can take a while and it isn’t always a high priority for many firms, who are often off and running on the next project.

2. It’s extremely rare for clients to immediately ship their completed project data off to QSM, though we’d love it if they would! More often, companies wait until they’re asked to contribute data, and even then they must sometimes get approval from management. While this process is rarely difficult, it does take time.

3. Once we receive the data, QSM must still validate it independently before it can be added to the database. Sometimes we go back to the contributing company and request more information. In one case, where we received a file with time, effort and size information but no languages, we were able to fill in the language data for a large number of projects from a separate spreadsheet supplied by the contributing firm. In the end, everyone benefited: our database was more complete and the contributing firm was given a DataManager file that had been double-checked and supplemented with language data from their spreadsheet.

4. After QSM validates customer data, it takes several months to create the industry trends you see in your SLIM-Suite tools. There are almost 500 separate trends, each of which must be independently examined against trends from previous years and checked for reasonableness to eliminate the possible influence of outliers in the underlying datasets. QSM makes every effort to ensure that our industry trends are as up to date, accurate, and consistent as possible. This requires us to have a large and varied sample of data to work with.

5. The final factor that can cause a time lag in populating the database is a human factor: many companies don’t fill in the default language, tooling, and descriptive fields before submitting data to us. We understand this – your time is valuable and though DataManager has enormous flexibility and can capture an almost endless amount of detail, there is a practical tradeoff between the time required to input data and the benefit derived from analyzing it. Furthermore, when a firm has a relatively small number of projects, the data collector may be so familiar with the projects that filling in all the fields seems unnecessary. He or she already knows which ones had an Oracle back end, which were client-server apps, and which were developed for the Web.

Unfortunately, that knowledge doesn’t transfer to us along with customer files. If only 20% of clients fill out a particular field, we may have scores of C# or Agile programming projects in our database and never even know it!

So what do you need to do to have your firm represented in the next trend line update? That’s easy. Simply send us your DataManager or completed SLIM-Control files!

If you require non-disclosure forms, we’ll be more than happy to sign them, or we can supply a generic form. You should know that QSM never discloses client data to third parties, except in summary form where individual projects and companies cannot be identified. We take your confidentiality very seriously.

If you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to contact me at 301 865-8242 or support@qsm.com. I’ll do everything in my power to make contributing data as easy and painless as possible. And as an added incentive, if you contribute 5 projects or more, we’ll send you a complementary copy of the QSM IT Almanac (a $500 value!) as our way of saying thanks.

Contributing data is the best way to ensure that the QSM database reflects a wide spectrum of project types, languages, and development methods. It helps us do ground-breaking research as well as improve our suite of estimation, tracking, and benchmarking tools. And you benefit as well from the ability to sanity-check estimates, ongoing projects, and completed projects against the best industry trends in the business. Please call or email today to find out how you can be a part of the next update.

SLIM Training
If you have a need for training, please contact your sales rep or Keith Ciocco at keith_ciocco@qsm.com or 703-749-3812. If you are unable to make it to McLean, Va for any of the upcoming scheduled training dates below, on-site training is available, as is our "Train the Trainer" program for companies with big needs.

QSM Europe Class Schedule
Classes will be held at the QSM Europe office in Breukelen, Netherlands. If you are unable to come to Breukelen for any of the upcoming scheduled training dates, on-site training is available, as is the newly developed one day executive introduction. If you have a need for training, please contact Ernst van Waning at ernst.van.waning@qsm-europe.com or call +31 346 566 952.

Call QSM today for a FREE DEMO
of our best in class SLIM-Suite Estimation Products
800 424 6755

You received this email because you, or your company, have purchased products or requested information from our company regarding the products or services shown above. You have the right to remove your name from this list by responding to this email with the word "Remove" in the subject line. If you choose to remain on this list, your email will be kept confidential and will never be sold or disseminated to any other source. Copyright QSM, Inc., 2000 Corporate Ridge, Suite 200, McLean, VA 22102