“The only way to increase product quality and reduce cost while concurrently improving product development speed is to fundamentally change the development process itself.”
Christopher Meyer 1
“Information development must be spearheaded by a general, not coordinated by aides-de-camp.”
Peter G. W. Keen 1981 1
Precise prediction is very difficult. Long ago, when FORTRAN and COBOL were still the new kids on the block, Ware wrote a science-fiction short story called “The Last Programmer.” That estimable gentleman had become the “last programmer” at his research institution and was being retired early with a gold watch. The retirement time was set for 1984, a then-future date popularized by George Orwell’s 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The assumption was that by 1984 the scientists and engineers would be working directly with the computers.&
This article discusses how, in software development, metrics can provide managers some assurance that the development can be conducted within bounds of cost, schedule, and reliability.
This article discusses how projects can now be estimated and bid with reasonable precision, allowing for a fact-based position in negotiations.
This article discusses process productivity and its continued relevance as far more than a passing fad.
The management metrics and the process productivity index computed from them can be applied, not only to organizations developing new application systems, but also to units specializing in the development of reusable components.
“While reuse has long been more of a hope than a promise, the greatest opportunity for dramatic productivity and quality improvement will be through improved ways to build new software on the progressively richer foundation of previously produced products.” Watts S. Humphrey 1
Yes! Do you want to be on the trailing edge of this paradigm shift while your competitors are using objects to consistently maneuver inside your development cycle.
John A. Strand III
Hidden Rule #1: “We can’t make sensible business decisions with such wide unknowns,” upper managers say.
From Tom DeMarco, Why Does Software Cost So Much?, Dorset House Publishing, 1995, 237 pages.