How to Bid, Control, and Complete Your Software Projects
Using Metrics
About
the Book
To succeed
in the software industry, managers need to cultivate a reliable development process.
By measuring what teams have achieved on previous projects, managers can more
accurately set goals, make bids, and ensure the successful completion of new projects.
Acclaimed
long-time collaborators Lawrence H. Putnam and Ware Myers present simple but powerful
measurement techniques to help software managers allocate limited resources and
track project progress.
Drawing new findings from an extensive database
of software project metrics, the authors demonstrate how readers can control projects
with just five core metrics—Time, Effort, Size, Reliability, and Process
Productivity. With these metrics, managers can adjust ongoing projects to changing
conditions—surprises that would otherwise cause project failure.
Insights
from the Book
"Whether it's a single company making use of metrics
or nine companies finding out from measurements how much difference a new technology
made, metrics can tell us that we are doing things right. Metrics provide and
enable the following:
dependable estimates of project effort, schedule,
and reliability
control of the project during its course
ability
to replan an errant project along the way
master-planning the assignment
of resources to all projects within the organization
monitoring process
improvement from year to year
"Furthermore, an organization
can apply these same metric capabilities to the oversight of development subcontractors
and outsourcing contractors.
"But first we must ask, What do we mean
by doing things right? We mean that fundamentally, we are turning out software
products in less development time, with less effort, at a better reliability level."
—From
Chapter 1
Reviews
"The book does a very good job explaining software
process and discussing different approaches to improving software development.
In addition, it explains some of the downsides of software improvement programs.
I especially like the opinions about the Capability Maturity Model."
—Tim
Kelleher Software Quality Professional
"An invaluable resource for project managers
and project leaders. Those managers bombarded with
software measurements will find what Putnam and
Myers refer to as the 'five core metrics' to be
a welcome solution to their metric woes. . . . Those
with even a little software management experience
should be able to adapt the concepts introduced
into a workable measurement program.
"Overall, Five Core Metrics: The Intelligence
Behind Successful Software Management is a good
read for those involved in software project management.
The informal style in which the majority of the
book is written simplifies many of the concepts
introduced and the authors provide good coverage
of all areas related to the five core metrics. .
. . New software project managers will find Five
Core Metrics not only puts forth a plausible
measurement concept but provides a great deal of
clever insight into the world of software management.
Readers will frequently find themselves nodding
in agreement to some of the thought provoking and
all too true industry tales. Five Core Metrics
is also a great source for organizations not
directly involved in software management. The insight
gained into the world of software management and
its metrics would surely benefit any organization
preparing to take the leap into the world of contract
software development."
—Michelle
Giles Stickyminds.com
"This book presents simple but powerful
measurement techniques to help software managers allocate limited resources and
track development progress."
—IEEE Computer
". . . a must-read for managers who want to
bring development under control.
"The book is intended to be used by software
development managers, and their bosses, and provides
a comprehensive approach to achieving predictability
in the software development process."
—Joe Saur ACM
Software Engineering Notes
"Five Core Metrics: The Intelligence Behind
Successful Software Management is a 'reader
friendly' instructional how-to guide to utilizing
the reliable development processes and techniques
that help software managers efficiently allocate
limited resources and carefully track progress,
ensuring optimum quality software with a minimum
of wasted effort
. . . . An exceptional business guide in its field,
Five Core Metrics is highly recommended reading
for anyone charged with the responsibility if using
and creating software projects using or incoporating
metric measurements."
—The
Midwest Book Review
". . . who hasn't struggled with productivity
measurement and improvement? Putnam and Myers carefully and exhaustively explain
why conventional productivity metrics—such as lines of code or function
points—are neither precise nor useful to measure productivity. Starting
with insight into software process improvement and the Capability Maturity Model,
they explain how process and productivity are related, which explains the "process
productivity" label. Needless to say, the five core metrics all relate to
each other using the updated and instrumented Putnam formula, which the authors
explain well."
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