SPPM Final Notes
SPPM Final Notes
SPPM Final Notes
Conventional Software Management: The waterfall model, conventional software Management performance.
Evolution of Software Economics: Software Economics, pragmatic software cost estimation
Conventional software management
Conventional software management practices are sound in theory, but practice is still tied to archaic (outdated)
technology and techniques.
Conventional software economics provides a benchmark of performance for conventional software manage-
ment principles.
The best thing about software is its flexibility: It can be programmed to do almost anything.
The worst thing about software is also its flexibility: The "almost anything" characteristic has made it difficult
to plan, monitors, and control software development.
Three important analyses of the state of the software engineering industry are
1. Software development is still highly unpredictable. Only about 10% of software projects are
delivered successfully within initial budget and schedule estimates.
2. Management discipline is more of a discriminator in success or failure than are technology advances.
3. The level of software scrap and rework is indicative of an immature process.
All three analyses reached the same general conclusion: The success rate for software projects is very low.
The three analyses provide a good introduction to the magnitude of the software problem and the current
norms for conventional software management performance.
IN THEORY
It provides an insightful and concise summary of conventional software management
Three main primary points are
1. There are two essential steps common to the development of computer programs: analysis and
coding.
Waterfall Model part 1: The two basic steps to building a program.
Analysis
Design
Coding
Testing
Operation
3. The basic framework described in the waterfall model is risky and invites failure. The testing phase
that occurs at the end of the development cycle is the first event for which timing, storage,
input/output transfers, etc., are experienced as distinguished from analyzed. The resulting design
changes are likely to be so disruptive that the software requirements upon which the design is based
are likely violated. Either the requirements must be modified or a substantial design change is
warranted.
1. Program design comes first. Insert a preliminary program design phase between the software
requirements generation phase and the analysis phase. By this technique, the program designer
assures that the software will not fail because of storage, timing, and data flux (continuous
change). As analysis proceeds in the succeeding phase, the program designer must impose on the
analyst the storage, timing, and operational constraints in such a way that he senses the consequences.
If the total resources to be applied are insufficient or if the embryonic(in an early stage of
development) operational design is wrong, it will be recognized at this early stage and the iteration
with requirements and preliminary design can be redone before final design, coding, and test
commences. How is this program design procedure implemented?
3. Do it twice. If a computer program is being developed for the first time, arrange matters so that the version
finally delivered to the customer for operational deployment is actually the second version insofar as critical
design/operations are concerned. Note that this is simply the entire process done in miniature, to a time scale
that is relatively small with respect to the overall effort. In the first version, the team must have a special
broad competence where they can quickly sense trouble spots in the design, model them, model alternatives,
forget the straightforward aspects of the design that aren't worth studying at this early point, and, finally,
arrive at an error-free program.
4. Plan, control, and monitor testing. Without question, the biggest user of project resources-manpower,
computer time, and/or management judgment-is the test phase. This is the phase of greatest risk in terms of
cost and schedule. It occurs at the latest point in the schedule, when backup alternatives are least available, if
at all. The previous three recommendations were all aimed at uncovering and solving problems before
entering the test phase. However, even after doing these things, there is still a test phase and there are still
important things to be done, including: (1) employ a team of test specialists who were not responsible for the
original design; (2) employ visual inspections to spot the obvious errors like dropped minus signs, missing
factors of two, jumps to wrong addresses (do not use the computer to detect this kind of thing, it is too
expensive); (3) test every logic path; (4) employ the final checkout on the target computer.
5. Involve the customer. It is important to involve the customer in a formal way so that he has committed
himself at earlier points before final delivery. There are three points following requirements definition where
the insight, judgment, and commitment of the customer can bolster the development effort. These include a
"preliminary software review" following the preliminary program design step, a sequence of "critical software
design reviews" during program design, and a "final software acceptance review".
IN PRACTICE
Some software projects still practice the conventional software management approach.
It is useful to summarize the characteristics of the conventional process as it has typically been applied,
which is not necessarily as it was intended. Projects destined for trouble frequently exhibit the following
symptoms:
For a typical development project that used a waterfall model management process, Figure 1-2 illustrates
development progress versus time. Progress is defined as percent coded, that is, demonstrable in its target form.
Early success via paper designs and thorough (often too thorough) briefings.
Commitment to code late in the life cycle.
Integration nightmares (unpleasant experience) due to unforeseen implementation issues and interface
ambiguities.
Heavy budget and schedule pressure to get the system working.
Late shoe-homing of no optimal fixes, with no time for redesign.
A very fragile, unmentionable product delivered late.
In the conventional model, the entire system was designed on paper, then implemented all at once, then
integrated. Table 1-1 provides a typical profile of cost expenditures across the spectrum of software activities.
Late risk resolution A serious issue associated with the waterfall lifecycle was the lack of early risk resolution.
Figure 1.3 illustrates a typical risk profile for conventional waterfall model projects. It includes four distinct
periods of risk exposure, where risk is defined as the probability of missing a cost, schedule, feature, or quality
goal. Early in the life cycle, as the requirements were being specified, the actual risk exposure was highly
unpredictable.
The following sequence of events was typical for most contractual software efforts:
1. The contractor prepared a draft contract-deliverable document that captured an intermediate artifact
and delivered it to the customer for approval.
3. The contractor incorporated these comments and submitted (typically within 15 to 30 days) a final
version for approval.
This one-shot review process encouraged high levels of sensitivity on the part of customers and contractors.
Barry Boehm's "Industrial Software Metrics Top 10 List” is a good, objective characterization of the state of
software development.
1. Finding and fixing a software problem after delivery costs 100 times more than finding and fixing the
problem in early design phases.
2. You can compress software development schedules 25% of nominal, but no more.
3. For every $1 you spend on development, you will spend $2 on maintenance.
4. Software development and maintenance costs are primarily a function of the number of source lines
of code.
5. Variations among people account for the biggest differences in software productivity.
6. The overall ratio of software to hardware costs is still growing. In 1955 it was 15:85; in 1985, 85:15.
7. Only about 15% of software development effort is devoted to programming.
8. Software systems and products typically cost 3 times as much per SLOC as individual software
programs. Software-system products (i.e., system of systems) cost 9 times as much.
9. Walkthroughs catch 60% of the errors
10. 80% of the contribution comes from 20% of the contributors.
SOFTWARE ECONOMICS
Most software cost models can be abstracted into a function of five basic parameters: size, process, personnel,
environment, and required quality.
1. The size of the end product (in human-generated components), which is typically quantified in terms
of the number of source instructions or the number of function points required to develop the
required functionality
2. The process used to produce the end product, in particular the ability of the process to avoid non-
value-adding activities (rework, bureaucratic delays, communications overhead)
3. The capabilities of software engineering personnel, and particularly their experience with the
computer science issues and the applications domain issues of the project
4. The environment, which is made up of the tools and techniques available to support efficient
software development and to automate the process
5. The required quality of the product, including its features, performance, reliability, and adaptability
The relationships among these parameters and the estimated cost can be written as follows:
Effort = (Personnel) (Environment) (Quality) ( Sizeprocess)
One important aspect of software economics (as represented within today's software cost models) is that
the relationship between effort and size exhibits a diseconomy of scale. The diseconomy of scale of software
development is a result of the process exponent being greater than 1.0. Contrary to most manufacturing
processes, the more software you build, the more expensive it is per unit item.
Figure 2-1 shows three generations of basic technology advancement in tools, components, and processes.
The required levels of quality and personnel are assumed to be constant. The ordinate of the graph refers to
software unit costs (pick your favorite: per SLOC, per function point, per component) realized by an
organization.
The three generations of software development are defined as follows:
1) Conventional: 1960s and 1970s, craftsmanship. Organizations used custom tools, custom processes,
and virtually all custom components built in primitive languages. Project performance was highly
predictable in that cost, schedule, and quality objectives were almost always underachieved.
2) Transition: 1980s and 1990s, software engineering. Organiz:1tions used more-repeatable processes and off-
the-shelf tools, and mostly (>70%) custom components built in higher level languages. Some of the
components (<30%) were available as commercial products, including the operating system, database
management system, networking, and graphical user interface.
3) Modern practices: 2000 and later, software production. This book's philosophy is rooted in the
use of managed and measured processes, integrated automation environments, and mostly
(70%) off-the-shelf components. Perhaps as few as 30% of the components need to be custom
built
Technologies for environment automation, size reduction, and process improvement are not independent of
one another. In each new era, the key is complementary growth in all technologies. For example, the process
advances could not be used successfully without new component technologies and increased tool automation.
Organizations are achieving better economies of scale in successive technology eras-with very large projects
(systems of systems), long-lived products, and lines of business comprising multiple similar projects. Figure 2-2
provides an overview of how a return on investment (ROI) profile can be achieved in subsequent efforts across
life cycles of various domains.
Improving Software Economics
Five basic parameters of the software cost model are
1. Reducing the size or complexity of what needs to be developed.
2. Improving the development process.
3. Using more-skilled personnel and better teams (not necessarily the same thing).
4. Using better environments (tools to automate the process).
5. Trading off or backing off on quality thresholds.
These parameters are given in priority order for most software domains. Table 3-1 lists some of the
technology developments, process improvement efforts, and management approaches targeted at
improving the economics of software development and integration.
LANGUAGES
Universal function points (UFPs1) are useful estimators for language-independent, early life-cycle estimates.
The basic units of function points are external user inputs, external outputs, internal logical data groups,
external data interfaces, and external inquiries. SLOC metrics are useful estimators for software after a
candidate solution is formulated and an implementation language is known. Substantial data have been
documented relating SLOC to function points. Some of these results are shown in Table 3-2.
Languages expressiveness of some of today’s popular languages
LANGUAGES SLOC per UFP
Assembly 320
C 128
1
Function point metrics provide a standardized method for measuring the various functions of a software application.
The basic units of function points are external user inputs, external outputs, internal logical data groups, external data interfaces, and
external inquiries.
FORTAN77 105
COBOL85 91
Ada83 71
C++ 56
Ada95 55
Java 55
Visual Basic 35
Table 3-2
1. An object-oriented model of the problem and its solution encourages a common vocabulary between
the end users of a system and its developers, thus creating a shared understanding of the problem
being solved.
2. The use of continuous integration creates opportunities to recognize risk early and make incremental
corrections without destabilizing the entire development effort.
3. An object-oriented architecture provides a clear separation of concerns among disparate elements of a
system, creating firewalls that prevent a change in one part of the system from rending the fabric of
the entire architecture.
1. A ruthless focus on the development of a system that provides a well understood collection of essential
minimal characteristics.
2. The existence of a culture that is centered on results, encourages communication, and yet is not afraid
to fail.
3. The effective use of object-oriented modeling.
4. The existence of a strong architectural vision.
5. The application of a well-managed iterative and incremental development life cycle.
REUSE
Reusing existing components and building reusable components have been natural software engineering
activities since the earliest improvements in programming languages. With reuse in order to minimize
development costs while achieving all the other required attributes of performance, feature set, and quality. Try
to treat reuse as a mundane part of achieving a return on investment.
Most truly reusable components of value are transitioned to commercial products supported by
organizations with the following characteristics:
COMMERCIAL COMPONENTS
A common approach being pursued today in many domains is to maximize integration of commercial
components and off-the-shelf products. While the use of commercial components is certainly desirable as a
means of reducing custom development, it has not proven to be straightforward in practice. Table 3-3 identifies
some of the advantages and disadvantages of using commercial components.
In a perfect software engineering world with an immaculate problem description, an obvious solution space, a
development team of experienced geniuses, adequate resources, and stakeholders with common goals, we
could execute a software development process in one iteration with almost no scrap and rework. Because we
work in an imperfect world, however, we need to manage engineering activities so that scrap and rework
profiles do not have an impact on the win conditions of any stakeholder. This should be the underlying
premise for most process improvements.
Software project managers need many leadership qualities in order to enhance team effectiveness. The
following are some crucial attributes of successful software project managers that deserve much more attention:
1. Hiring skills. Few decisions are as important as hiring decisions. Placing the right person in the right
job seems obvious but is surprisingly hard to achieve.
2. Customer-interface skill. Avoiding adversarial relationships among stakeholders is a prerequisite for
success.
Decision-making skill. The jillion books written about management have failed to provide a clear
definition of this attribute. We all know a good leader when we run into one, and decision-making
skill seems obvious despite its intangible definition.
Team-building skill. Teamwork requires that a manager establish trust, motivate progress, exploit
eccentric prima donnas, transition average people into top performers, eliminate misfits, and
consolidate diverse opinions into a team direction.
Selling skill. Successful project managers must sell all stakeholders (including themselves) on decisions
and priorities, sell candidates on job positions, sell changes to the status quo in the face of resistance, and
sell achievements against objectives. In practice, selling requires continuous negotiation, compromise,
and empathy
Key practices that improve overall software quality include the following:
Focusing on driving requirements and critical use cases early in the life cycle, focusing on
requirements completeness and traceability late in the life cycle, and focusing throughout the life cycle
on a balance between requirements evolution, design evolution, and plan evolution
Using metrics and indicators to measure the progress and quality of an architecture as it evolves from
a high-level prototype into a fully compliant product
Providing integrated life-cycle environments that support early and continuous configuration control,
change management, rigorous design methods, document automation, and regression test automation
Using visual modeling and higher level languages that support architectural control, abstraction,
reliable programming, reuse, and self-documentation
Early and continuous insight into performance issues through demonstration-based evaluations
Conventional development processes stressed early sizing and timing estimates of computer program
resource utilization. However, the typical chronology of events in performance assessment was as follows
Project inception. The proposed design was asserted to be low risk with adequate performance
margin.
Initial design review. Optimistic assessments of adequate design margin were based mostly on paper
analysis or rough simulation of the critical threads. In most cases, the actual application algorithms
and database sizes were fairly well understood.
Mid-life-cycle design review. The assessments started whittling away at the margin, as early
benchmarks and initial tests began exposing the optimism inherent in earlier estimates.
Integration and test. Serious performance problems were uncovered, necessitating fundamental
changes in the architecture. The underlying infrastructure was usually the scapegoat, but the real
culprit was immature use of the infrastructure, immature architectural solutions, or poorly under stood
early design trade-offs.
Transitioning engineering information from one artifact set to another, thereby assessing the consistency,
feasibility, understandability, and technology constraints inherent in the engineering artifacts
Major milestone demonstrations that force the artifacts to be assessed against tangible criteria in the
context of relevant use cases
Environment tools (compilers, debuggers, analyzers, automated test suites) that ensure representation
rigor, consistency, completeness, and change control
Life-cycle testing for detailed insight into critical trade-offs, acceptance criteria, and requirements
compliance
Change management metrics for objective insight into multiple-perspective change trends and
convergence or divergence from quality and progress goals
Inspections are also a good vehicle for holding authors accountable for quality products. All authors of
software and documentation should have their products scrutinized as a natural by-product of the process.
Therefore, the coverage of inspections should be across all authors rather than across all components.
Top 10 principles of modern software management are. (The first five, which are the main themes of my
definition of an iterative process, are summarized in Figure 4-1.)
Base the process on an architecture-first approach. This requires that a demonstrable balance be achieved
among the driving requirements, the architecturally significant design decisions, and the life-cycle plans
before the resources are committed for full-scale development.
Establish an iterative life-cycle process that confronts risk early. With today's sophisticated software
systems, it is not possible to define the entire problem, design the entire solution, build the software, and
then test the end product in sequence. Instead, an iterative process that refines the problem understanding,
an effective solution, and an effective plan over several iterations encourages a balanced treatment of all
stakeholder objectives. Major risks must be addressed early to increase predictability and avoid expensive
downstream scrap and rework.
Transition design methods to emphasize component-based development. Moving from a line-of-code
mentality to a component-based mentality is necessary to reduce the amount of human-generated source
code and custom development.
Table 4-1 maps top 10 risks of the conventional process to the key attributes and principles of a modern
process
Life cycle phases
Characteristic of a successful software development process is the well-defined separation between "research
and development" activities and "production" activities. Most unsuccessful projects exhibit one of the following
characteristics:
An overemphasis on research and development
An overemphasis on production.
Successful modern projects-and even successful projects developed under the conventional process-tend to have
a very well-defined project milestone when there is a noticeable transition from a research attitude to a
production attitude. Earlier phases focus on achieving functionality. Later phases revolve around achieving a
product that can be shipped to a customer, with explicit attention to robustness, performance, and finish.
A modern software development process must be defined to support the following:
Evolution of the plans, requirements, and architecture, together with well defined synchronization
points
Risk management and objective measures of progress and quality
Evolution of system capabilities through demonstrations of increasing functionality
To achieve economies of scale and higher returns on investment, we must move toward a software
manufacturing process driven by technological improvements in process automation and component-based
development. Two stages of the life cycle are:
1. The engineering stage, driven by less predictable but smaller teams doing design and synthesis
activities
2. The production stage, driven by more predictable but larger teams doing construction, test, and
deployment activities
The transition between engineering and production is a crucial event for the various stakeholders. The
production plan has been agreed upon, and there is a good enough understanding of the problem and the
solution that all stakeholders can make a firm commitment to go ahead with production.
Engineering stage is decomposed into two distinct phases, inception and elaboration, and the production stage
into construction and transition. These four phases of the life-cycle process are loosely mapped to the
conceptual framework of the spiral model as shown in Figure 5-1
INCEPTION PHASE
The overriding goal of the inception phase is to achieve concurrence among stakeholders on the life-cycle
objectives for the project.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
Establishing the project's software scope and boundary conditions, including an operational concept,
acceptance criteria, and a clear understanding of what is and is not intended to be in the product
Discriminating the critical use cases of the system and the primary scenarios of operation that will
drive the major design trade-offs
Demonstrating at least one candidate architecture against some of the primary scenanos
Estimating the cost and schedule for the entire project (including detailed estimates for the
elaboration phase)
Estimating potential risks (sources of unpredictability)
ESSENTIAL ACTMTIES
Formulating the scope of the project. The information repository should be sufficient to define the
problem space and derive the acceptance criteria for the end product.
Synthesizing the architecture. An information repository is created that is sufficient to demonstrate the
feasibility of at least one candidate architecture and an, initial baseline of make/buy decisions so that
the cost, schedule, and resource estimates can be derived.
Planning and preparing a business case. Alternatives for risk management, staffing, iteration plans,
and cost/schedule/profitability trade-offs are evaluated.
PRIMARY EVALUATION CRITERIA
Do all stakeholders concur on the scope definition and cost and schedule estimates?
Are requirements understood, as evidenced by the fidelity of the critical use cases?
Are the cost and schedule estimates, priorities, risks, and development processes credible?
Do the depth and breadth of an architecture prototype demonstrate the preceding criteria? (The
primary value of prototyping candidate architecture is to provide a vehicle for understanding the
scope and assessing the credibility of the development group in solving the particular technical
problem.)
Are actual resource expenditures versus planned expenditures acceptable
ELABORATION PHASE
At the end of this phase, the "engineering" is considered complete. The elaboration phase activities must ensure
that the architecture, requirements, and plans are stable enough, and the risks sufficiently mitigated, that the cost
and schedule for the completion of the development can be predicted within an acceptable range. During the
elaboration phase, an executable architecture prototype is built in one or more iterations, depending on the
scope, size, & risk.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
Baselining the architecture as rapidly as practical (establishing a configuration-managed snapshot in which
all changes are rationalized, tracked, and maintained)
Baselining the vision
Baselining a high-fidelity plan for the construction phase
Demonstrating that the baseline architecture will support the vision at a reasonable cost in a reasonable
time
ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES
Elaborating the vision.
Elaborating the process and infrastructure.
Elaborating the architecture and selecting components.
CONSTRUCTION PHASE
During the construction phase, all remaining components and application features are integrated into the
application, and all features are thoroughly tested. Newly developed software is integrated where required. The
construction phase represents a production process, in which emphasis is placed on managing resources and
controlling operations to optimize costs, schedules, and quality.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
Minimizing development costs by optimizing resources and avoiding unnecessary scrap and rework
Achieving adequate quality as rapidly as practical
Achieving useful versions (alpha, beta, and other test releases) as rapidly as practical
ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES
Resource management, control, and process optimization
Complete component development and testing against evaluation criteria
Assessment of product releases against acceptance criteria of the vision
TRANSITION PHASE
The transition phase is entered when a baseline is mature enough to be deployed in the end-user domain. This
typically requires that a usable subset of the system has been achieved with acceptable quality levels and user
documentation so that transition to the user will provide positive results. This phase could include any of the
following activities:
PRIMARY OBJECTIVES
Achieving user self-supportability
Achieving stakeholder concurrence that deployment baselines are complete and consistent with the
evaluation criteria of the vision
Achieving final product baselines as rapidly and cost-effectively as practical
ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES
Synchronization and integration of concurrent construction increments into consistent deployment
baselines
Deployment-specific engineering (cutover, commercial packaging and production, sales rollout kit
development, field personnel training)
Assessment of deployment baselines against the complete vision and acceptance criteria in the
requirements set
EVALUATION CRITERIA
Is the user satisfied?
Are actual resource expenditures versus planned expenditures acceptable?
Requirements Set
Requirements artifacts are evaluated, assessed, and measured through a combination of the following:
Design Set
UML notation is used to engineer the design models for the solution. The design set contains varying levels
of abstraction that represent the components of the solution space (their identities, attributes, static
relationships, dynamic interactions). The design set is evaluated, assessed, and measured through a combination
of the following:
Analysis of the internal consistency and quality of the design model
Analysis of consistency with the requirements models
Translation into implementation and deployment sets and notations (for example, traceability, source
code generation, compilation, linking) to evaluate the consistency and completeness and the semantic
balance between information in the sets
Analysis of changes between the current version of the design model and previous versions (scrap,
rework, and defect elimination trends)
Subjective review of other dimensions of quality
Implementation set
The implementation set includes source code (programming language notations) that represents the tangible
implementations of components (their form, interface, and dependency relationships)
Implementation sets are human-readable formats that are evaluated, assessed, and measured through a
combination of the following:
Analysis of consistency with the design models
Translation into deployment set notations (for example, compilation and linking) to evaluate the
consistency and completeness among artifact sets
Assessment of component source or executable files against relevant evaluation criteria through
inspection, analysis, demonstration, or testing
Execution of stand-alone component test cases that automatically compare expected results with
actual results
Analysis of changes between the current version of the implementation set and previous versions
(scrap, rework, and defect elimination trends)
Subjective review of other dimensions of quality
Deployment Set
The deployment set includes user deliverables and machine language notations, executable software, and the
build scripts, installation scripts, and executable target specific data necessary to use the product in its target
environment.
Deployment sets are evaluated, assessed, and measured through a combination of the following:
Testing against the usage scenarios and quality attributes defined in the requirements set to evaluate
the consistency and completeness and the~ semantic balance between information in the two sets
Testing the partitioning, replication, and allocation strategies in mapping components of the
implementation set to physical resources of the deployment system (platform type, number, network
topology)
Testing against the defined usage scenarios in the user manual such as installation, user-oriented
dynamic reconfiguration, mainstream usage, and anomaly management
Analysis of changes between the current version of the deployment set and previous versions (defect
elimination trends, performance changes)
Subjective review of other dimensions of quality
Each artifact set is the predominant development focus of one phase of the life cycle; the other sets take on
check and balance roles. As illustrated in Figure 6-2, each phase has a predominant focus: Requirements are the
focus of the inception phase; design, the elaboration phase; implementation, the construction phase; and deploy -
ment, the transition phase. The management artifacts also evolve, but at a fairly constant level across the life
cycle.
Most of today's software development tools map closely to one of the five artifact sets.
1. Management: scheduling, workflow, defect tracking, change management,
documentation, spreadsheet, resource management, and presentation tools
2. Requirements: requirements management tools
3. Design: visual modeling tools
4. Implementation: compiler/debugger tools, code analysis tools, test coverage analysis tools, and test
management tools
5. Deployment: test coverage and test automation tools, network management tools, commercial components
(operating systems, GUIs, RDBMS, networks, middleware), and installation tools.
MANAGEMENT ARTIFACTS
The management set includes several artifacts that capture intermediate results and ancillary information
necessary to document the product/process legacy, maintain the product, improve the product, and
improve the process.
Business Case
The business case artifact provides all the information necessary to determine whether the project is worth
investing in. It details the expected revenue, expected cost, technical and management plans, and backup
data necessary to demonstrate the risks and realism of the plans. The main purpose is to transform the
vision into economic terms so that an organization can make an accurate ROI assessment. The financial
forecasts are evolutionary, updated with more accurate forecasts as the life cycle progresses. Figure 6-4
provides a default outline for a business case.
Software Development Plan
The software development plan (SDP) elaborates the process framework into a fully detailed plan. Two
indications of a useful SDP are periodic updating (it is not stagnant shelfware) and understanding and
acceptance by managers and practitioners alike. Figure 6-5 provides a default outline for a software
development plan.
Work Breakdown Structure
Work breakdown structure (WBS) is the vehicle for budgeting and collecting costs. To monitor and control a
project's financial performance, the software project man1ger must have insight into project costs and how they
are expended. The structure of cost accountability is a serious project planning constraint.
Release Specifications
The scope, plan, and objective evaluation criteria for each baseline release are derived from the vision statement
as well as many other sources (make/buy analyses, risk management concerns, architectural considerations,
shots in the dark, implementation constraints, quality thresholds). These artifacts are intended to evolve along
with the process, achieving greater fidelity as the life cycle progresses and requirements understanding matures.
Figure 6-6 provides a default outline for a release specification
Release Descriptions
Release description documents describe the results of each release, including performance against each of the
evaluation criteria in the corresponding release specification. Release baselines should be accompanied by a
release description document that describes the evaluation criteria for that configuration baseline and provides
substantiation (through demonstration, testing, inspection, or analysis) that each criterion has been addressed in
an acceptable manner. Figure 6-7 provides a default outline for a release description.
Status Assessments
Status assessments provide periodic snapshots of project health and status, including the software project
manager's risk assessment, quality indicators, and management indicators. Typical status assessments should
include a review of resources, personnel staffing, financial data (cost and revenue), top 10 risks, technical
progress (metrics snapshots), major milestone plans and results, total project or product scope & action items
Environment
An important emphasis of a modern approach is to define the development and maintenance environment as a
first-class artifact of the process. A robust, integrated development environment must support automation of the
development process. This environment should include requirements management, visual modeling, document
automation, host and target programming tools, automated regression testing, and continuous and integrated
change management, and feature and defect tracking.
Deployment
A deployment document can take many forms. Depending on the project, it could include several document
subsets for transitioning the product into operational status. In big contractual efforts in which the system is
delivered to a separate maintenance organization, deployment artifacts may include computer system operations
manuals, software installation manuals, plans and procedures for cutover (from a legacy system), site surveys,
and so forth. For commercial software products, deployment artifacts may include marketing plans, sales rollout
kits, and training courses.
ENGINEERING ARTIFACTS
Most of the engineering artifacts are captured in rigorous engineering notations such as UML, programming
languages, or executable machine codes. Three engineering artifacts are explicitly intended for more general
review, and they deserve further elaboration.
Vision Document
The vision document provides a complete vision for the software system under development and. supports the
contract between the funding authority and the development organization. A project vision is meant to be
changeable as understanding evolves of the requirements, architecture, plans, and technology. A good vision
document should change slowly. Figure 6-9 provides a default outline for a vision document.
Architecture Description
The architecture description provides an organized view of the software architecture under development. It is
extracted largely from the design model and includes views of the design, implementation, and deployment sets
sufficient to understand how the operational concept of the requirements set will be achieved. The breadth of
the architecture description will vary from project to project depending on many factors. Figure 6-10 provides a
default outline for an architecture description.
Software User Manual
The software user manual provides the user with the reference documentation necessary to support the delivered
software. Although content is highly variable across application domains, the user manual should include
installation procedures, usage procedures and guidance, operational constraints, and a user interface description,
at a minimum. For software products with a user interface, this manual should be developed early in the life
cycle because it is a necessary mechanism for communicating and stabilizing an important subset of
requirements. The user manual should be written by members of the test team, who are more likely to
understand the user's perspective than the development team.
PRAGMATIC ARTIFACTS
People want to review information but don't understand the language of the artifact. Many
interested reviewers of a particular artifact will resist having to learn the engineering language in which the
artifact is written. It is not uncommon to find people (such as veteran software managers, vet eran quality
assurance specialists, or an auditing authority from a regulatory agency) who react as follows: "I'm not going to
learn UML, but I want to review the design of this software, so give me a separate description such as some
flowcharts and text that I can understand."
People want to review the information but don't have access to the tools. It is not very common for
the development organization to be fully tooled; it is extremely rare that the/other stakeholders have any
capability to review the engineering artifacts on-line. Consequently, organizations are forced to exchange paper
documents. Standardized formats (such as UML, spreadsheets, Visual Basic, C++, and Ada 95), visualization
tools, and the Web are rapidly making it economically feasible for all stakeholders to exchange information
electronically.
Huma
n-readable engineering artifacts should use rigorous notations that are complete, consistent, and used in
a self-documenting manner. Properly spelled English words should be used for all identifiers and descriptions.
Acronyms and abbreviations should be used only where they are well accepted jargon in the context of the
component's usage. Readability should be emphasized and the use of proper English words should be required
in all engineering artifacts. This practice enables understandable representations, browse able formats (paperless
review), more-rigorous notations, and reduced error rates.
Useful documentation is self-defining: It is documentation that gets used.
Paper
is tangible; electronic artifacts are too easy to change. On-line and Web-based artifacts can be changed
easily and are viewed with more skepticism because of their inherent volatility.
UNIT- 3
Workflow of the process
FIGURE shows the allocation of artifacts and the emphasis of each workflow in each of the life-cycle phases of
inception, elaboration, construction, and transition.
ITERATION WORKFLOWS
Iteration consists of a loosely sequential set of activities in various proportions, depending on where the
iteration is located in the development cycle. Each iteration is defined in terms of a set of allocated usage
scenarios. An individual iteration's workflow, illustrated in Figure 8-2, generally includes the following
sequence:
Management: iteration planning to determine the content of the release and develop the detailed plan
for the iteration; assignment of work packages, or tasks, to the development team
Environment: evolving the software change order database to reflect all new baselines and changes to
existing baselines for all product, test, and environment components
Requirements: analyzing the baseline plan, the baseline architecture, and the baseline requirements
set artifacts to fully elaborate the use cases to be demonstrated at the end of this iteration and their
evaluation criteria; updating any requirements set artifacts to reflect changes necessitated by results
of this iteration's engineering activities
Design: evolving the baseline architecture and the baseline design set artifacts to elaborate fully the
design model and test model components necessary to demonstrate against the evaluation criteria
allocated to this iteration; updating design set artifacts to reflect changes necessitated by the results
of this iteration's engineering activities
Implementation: developing or acquiring any new components, and enhancing or modifying any
existing components, to demonstrate the evaluation criteria allocated to this iteration; integrating and
testing all new and modified components with existing baselines (previous versions)
Assessment: evaluating the results of the iteration, including compliance with the allocated
evaluation criteria and the quality of the current baselines; identifying any rework required and
determining whether it should be performed before deployment of this release or allocated to the
next release; assessing results to improve the basis of the subsequent iteration's plan
Deployment: transitioning the release either to an external organization (such as a user, independent
verification and validation contractor, or regulatory agency) or to internal closure by conducting a
post-mortem so that lessons learned can be captured and reflected in the next iteration
Iterations in the inception and elaboration phases focus on management. Requirements, and design activities.
Iterations in the construction phase focus on design, implementation, and assessment. Iterations in the
transition phase focus on assessment and deployment. Figure 8-3 shows the emphasis on different activities
across the life cycle. An iteration represents the state of the overall architecture and the complete deliverable
system. An increment represents the current progress that will be combined with the preceding iteration to
from the next iteration. Figure 8-4, an example of a simple development life cycle, illustrates the differences
between iterations and increments.
Checkpoints of the process
Three types of joint management reviews are conducted throughout the process:
1. Major milestones. These system wide events are held at the end of each development phase. They
provide visibility to system wide issues, synchronize the management and engineering perspectives,
and verify that the aims of the phase have been achieved.
2. Minor milestones. These iteration-focused events are conducted to review the content of an iteration
in detail and to authorize continued work.
3. Status assessments. These periodic events provide management with frequent and regular insight
into the progress being made.
Each of the four phases-inception, elaboration, construction, and transition consists of one or more iterations
and concludes with a major milestone when a planned technical capability is produced in demonstrable form.
An iteration represents a cycle of activities for which there is a well-defined intermediate result-a minor
milestone-captured with two artifacts: a release specification (the evaluation criteria and plan) and a release
description (the results). Major milestones at the end of each phase use formal, stakeholder-approved evaluation
criteria and release descriptions; minor milestones use informal, development-team-controlled versions of these
artifacts.
Figure 9-1 illustrates a typical sequence of project checkpoints for a relatively large project.
MAJOR MILESTONES
The four major milestones occur at the transition points between life-cycle phases. They can be used in many
different process models, including the conventional waterfall model. Inan iterative model, the major milestones
are used to achieve concurrence among all stakeholders on the current state of the project. Different
stakeholders have very different concerns:
Customers: schedule and budget estimates, feasibility, risk assessment, requirements understanding,
progress, product line compatibility
Users: consistency with requirements and usage scenarios, potential for accommodating growth,
quality attributes
Architects and systems engineers: product line compatibility, requirements changes, trade-off
analyses, completeness and consistency, balance among risk, quality, and usability
Developers: sufficiency of requirements detail and usage scenario descriptions, . frameworks for
component selection or development, resolution of development risk, product line compatibility,
sufficiency of the development environment
Maintainers: sufficiency of product and documentation artifacts, understandability, interoperability
with existing systems, sufficiency of maintenance environment
Others: possibly many other perspectives by stakeholders such as regulatory agencies, independent
verification and validation contractors, venture capital investors, subcontractors, associate contractors,
and sales and marketing teams
The technical data listed in Figure 9-2 should have been reviewed by the time of the lifecycle architecture
milestone. Figure 9-3 provides default agendas for this milestone.
MINOR MILESTONES
For most iterations, which have a one-month to six-month duration, only two minor milestones are needed: the
iteration readiness review and the iteration assessment review.
Iteration Readiness Review. This informal milestone is conducted at the start of each iteration to
review the detailed iteration plan and the evaluation criteria that have been allocated to this iteration .
Iteration Assessment Review. This informal milestone is conducted at the end of each iteration to
assess the degree to which the iteration achieved its objectives and satisfied its evaluation criteria, to
review iteration results, to review qualification test results (if part of the iteration), to determine the
amount of rework to be done, and to review the impact of the iteration results on the plan for
subsequent iterations.
The format and content of these minor milestones tend to be highly dependent on the project and the
organizational culture. Figure 9-4 identifies the various minor milestones to be considered when a project is
being planned.
PERIODIC STATUS ASSESSMENTS
Periodic status assessments are management reviews conducted at regular intervals (monthly, quarterly) to
address progress and quality indicators, ensure continuous attention to project dynamics, and maintain open
communications among all stakeholders.
Periodic status assessments serve as project snapshots. While the period may vary, the recurring event forces
the project history to be captured and documented. Status assessments provide the following:
A mechanism for openly addressing, communicating, and resolving management issues, technical
issues, and project risks
Objective data derived directly from on-going activities and evolving product configurations
A mechanism for disseminating process, progress, quality trends, practices, and experience
information to and from all stakeholders in an open forum
Periodic status assessments are crucial for focusing continuous attention on the evolving health of the
project and its dynamic priorities. They force the software project manager to collect and review the data
periodically, force outside peer review, and encourage dissemination of best practices to and from other
stakeholders.
The default content of periodic status assessments should include the topics identified in Table 9-2.
Iterative process planning
A good work breakdown structure and its synchronization with the process framework are critical factors in
software project success. Development of a work breakdown structure dependent on the project management
style, organizational culture, customer preference, financial constraints, and several other hard-to-define,
project-specific parameters.
A WBS is simply a hierarchy of elements that decomposes the project plan into the discrete work tasks. A
WBS provides the following information structure:
A delineation of all significant work
A clear task decomposition for assignment of responsibilities
A framework for scheduling, budgeting, and expenditure tracking
Many parameters can drive the decomposition of work into discrete tasks: product subsystems, components,
functions, organizational units, life-cycle phases, even geographies. Most systems have a first-level
decomposition by subsystem. Subsystems are then decomposed into their components, one of which is typically
the software.
An evolutionary WBS should organize the planning elements around the process framework rather than the
product framework. The basic recommendation for the WBS is to organize the hierarchy as follows:
First-level WBS elements are the workflows (management, environment, requirements, design,
implementation, assessment, and deployment).
Second-level elements are defined for each phase of the life cycle (inception, elaboration,
construction, and transition).
Third-level elements are defined for the focus of activities that produce the artifacts of each phase.
A default WBS consistent with the process framework (phases, workflows, and artifacts) is shown in
Figure 10-2. This recommended structure provides one example of how the elements of the process
framework can be integrated into a plan. It provides a framework for estimating the costs and schedules of
each element, allocating them across a project organization, and tracking expenditures.
The structure shown is intended to be merely a starting point. It needs to be tailored to the specifics of a
project in many ways.
Scale. Larger projects will have more levels and substructures.
Organizational structure. Projects that include subcontractors or span multiple organizational
entities may introduce constraints that necessitate different WBS allocations.
Degree of custom development. Depending on the character of the project, there can be very
different emphases in the requirements, design, and implementation workflows.
Business context. Projects developing commercial products for delivery to a broad customer base
may require much more elaborate substructures for the deployment element.
Precedent experience. Very few projects start with a clean slate. Most of them are developed as new
generations of a legacy system (with a mature WBS) or in the context of existing organizational
standards (with preordained WBS expectations).
The WBS decomposes the character of the project and maps it to the life cycle, the budget, and the personnel.
Reviewing a WBS provides insight into the important attributes, priorities, and structure of the project plan.
Another important attribute of a good WBS is that the planning fidelity inherent in each element is
commensurate with the current life-cycle phase and project state. Figure 10-3 illustrates this idea. One of the
primary reasons for organizing the default WBS the way I have is to allow for planning elements that range
from planning packages (rough budgets that are maintained as an estimate for future elaboration rather than
being decomposed into detail) through fully planned activity networks (with a well-defined budget and
continuous assessment of actual versus planned expenditures).
PLANNING GUIDELINES
Software projects span a broad range of application domains. It is valuable but risky to make specific planning
recommendations independent of project context. Project-independent planning advice is also risky. There is the
risk that the guidelines may pe adopted blindly without being adapted to specific project circumstances. Two
simple planning guidelines should be considered when a project plan is being initiated or assessed. The first
guideline, detailed in Table 10-1, prescribes a default allocation of costs among the first-level WBS elements.
The second guideline, detailed in Table 10-2, prescribes the allocation of effort and schedule across the lifecycle
phases.
Web budgeting defaults
Project plans need to be derived from two perspectives. The first is a forward-looking, top-down approach. It
starts with an understanding of the general requirements and constraints, derives a macro-level budget and
schedule, then decomposes these elements into lower level budgets and intermediate milestones. From this
perspective, the following planning sequence would occur:
1. The software project manager (and others) develops a characterization of the overall size, process,
environment, people, and quality required for the project.
2. A macro-level estimate of the total effort and schedule is developed using a software cost
estimation model.
3. The software project manager partitions the estimate for the effort into a top-level WBS using
guidelines such as those in Table 10-1.
4. At this point, subproject managers are given the responsibility for decomposing each of the WBS
elements into lower levels using their top-level allocation, staffing profile, and major milestone dates
as constraints.
The second perspective is a backward-looking, bottom-up approach. We start with the end in mind, analyze
the micro-level budgets and schedules, then sum all these elements into the higher level budgets and
intermediate milestones. This approach tends to define and populate the WBS from the lowest levels upward.
From this per-spective, the following planning sequence would occur:
1. The lowest level WBS elements are elaborated into detailed tasks
2. Estimates are combined and integrated into higher level budgets and milestones.
3. Comparisons are made with the top-down budgets and schedule milestones.
Milestone scheduling or budget allocation through top-down estimating tends to exaggerate the project
management biases and usually results in an overly optimistic plan. Bottom-up estimates usually exaggerate
the performer biases and result in an overly pessimistic plan.
These two planning approaches should be used together, in balance, throughout the life cycle of the project.
During the engineering stage, the top-down perspective will dominate because there is usually not enough
depth of understanding nor stability in the detailed task sequences to perform credible bottom-up planning.
During the production stage, there should be enough precedent experience and planning fidelity that the
bottom-up planning perspective will dominate. Top-down approach should be well tuned to the project-
specific parameters, so it should be used more as a global assessment technique.
Macro level task estimation for Micro level task estimation for
production stage artifacts production stage artifacts
Micro level task estimation for Macro level task estimation for
engineering artifacts maintenance of engineering artifacts
Stakeholder concurrence Stakeholder concurrence
Coarse grained variance analysis of Fine grained variance analysis of actual
actual vs planned expenditures vs planned expenditures
Tuning the top down project
independent planning guidelines into
project specific planning guidelines
WBS definition and elaboration
THE ITERATION PLANNING PROCESS
Planning is concerned with defining the actual sequence of intermediate results. An evolutionary build plan
is important because there are always adjustments in build content and schedule as early conjecture evolves
into well-understood project circumstances. Iteration is used to mean a complete synchronization across the
project, with a well-orchestrated global assessment of the entire project baseline.
Inception iterations. The early prototyping activities integrate the foundation components of a
candidate architecture and provide an executable framework for elaborating the critical use
cases of the system. This framework includes existing components, commercial components,
and custom prototypes sufficient to demonstrate a candidate architecture and sufficient
requirements understanding to establish a credible business case, vision, and software
development plan.
Elaboration iterations. These iterations result in architecture, including a complete framework and
infrastructure for execution. Upon completion of the architecture iteration, a few critical use cases
should be demonstrable: (1) initializing the architecture, (2) injecting a scenario to drive the worst-
case data processing flow through the system (for example, the peak transaction throughput or peak
load scenario), and (3) injecting a scenario to drive the worst-case control flow through the system
(for example, orchestrating the fault-tolerance use cases).
Construction iterations. Most projects require at least two major construction iterations: an alpha release
and a beta release.
Transition iterations. Most projects use a single iteration to transition a beta release into the final product.
The general guideline is that most projects will use between four and nine iterations. The typical project would
have the following six-iteration profile:
One iteration in inception: an architecture prototype
Two iterations in elaboration: architecture prototype and architecture baseline
Two iterations in construction: alpha and beta releases
One iteration in transition: product release
A very large or unprecedented project with many stakeholders may require additional inception iteration and
two additional iterations in construction, for a total of nine iterations.
PRAGMATIC PLANNING
Even though good planning is more dynamic in an iterative process, doing it accurately is far easier. While
executing iteration N of any phase, the software project manager must be monitoring and controlling against a
plan that was initiated in iteration N - 1 and must be planning iteration N + 1. The art of good project·
management is to make trade-offs in the current iteration plan and the next iteration plan based on objective
results in the current iteration and previous iterations. Aside from bad architectures and misunderstood
requirements, inadequate planning (and subsequent bad management) is one of the most common reasons for
project failures. Conversely, the success of every successful project can be attributed in part to good planning.
A project's plan is a definition of how the project requirements will be transformed into' a product within the
business constraints. It must be realistic, it must be current, it must be a team product, it must be understood by
the stakeholders, and it must be used. Plans are not just for managers. The more open and visible the planning
process and results, the more ownership there is among the team members who need to execute it. Bad, closely
held plans cause attrition. Good, open plans can shape cultures and encourage teamwork.
UNIT - IV
Project Organizations and Responsibilities: Line-of-Business Organizations, Project Organizations, evolution
of Organizations.
Process Automation: Automation Building blocks, The Project Environment.
61
Software Engineering Process Authority (SEPA)
The SEPA facilities the exchange of information & process guidance both to & from project
practitioners
This role is accountable to General Manager for maintaining a current assessment of the
organization’s process maturity & its plan for future improvement
The SEEA is responsible for automating the organization’s process, maintaining the organization’s
standard environment, Training projects to use the environment & maintaining organization-wide
reusable assets
The SEEA role is necessary to achieve a significant ROI for common process.
Infrastructure
An organization’s infrastructure provides human resources support, project-independent
research & development, & other capital software engineering assets.
Project organizations:
Software Management
Artifacts Activities
Inception Elaboration
Software Software
Management Management
10% 10%
Transition Construction
Inception: Elaboration:
Software management: 50% Software management: 10%
Software Architecture: 20% Software Architecture: 50%
Software development: 20% Software development: 20%
Software Assessment Software Assessment
(measurement/evaluation):10% (measurement/evaluation):20%
Construction: Transition:
Software management: 10% Software management: 10%
Software Architecture: 10% Software Architecture: 5%
Software development: 50% Software development: 35%
Software Assessment Software Assessment
(measurement/evaluation):30% (measurement/evaluation):50%
Process Automation:
Introductory Remarks:
The environment must be the first-class artifact of the process.
Process automation & change management is critical to an iterative process. If the change is expensive
then the development organization will resist it.
Round-trip engineering & integrated environments promote change freedom & effective evolution
of technical artifacts.
Metric automation is crucial to effective project control.
External stakeholders need access to environment resources to improve interaction with the development team
& add value to the process.
The three levels of process which requires a certain degree of process automation for the corresponding process
to be carried out efficiently.
Metaprocess (Line of business): The automation support for this level is called an infrastructure.
Macroproces (project): The automation support for a project’s process is called an environment.
Microprocess (iteration): The automation support for generating artifacts is generally called a tool.
Round-Trip engineering
Change Management
Software Change Orders (SCO)
Configuration baseline Configuration Control Board
Infrastructure
Organization Policy
Organization Environment
Stakeholder Environment.
Round Trip Environment
Tools must be integrated to maintain consistency & traceability. Round-Trip engineering is the term
used to describe this key requirement for environment that support iterative development.
As the software industry moves into maintaining different information sets for the engineering artifacts,
more automation support is needed to ensure efficient & error free transition of data from one artifacts to
another. Round-trip engineering is the environment support necessary to maintain Consistency among the
engineering artifacts.
Change Management
Change management must be automated & enforced to manage multiple iterations & to enable change freedom.
Change is the fundamental primitive of iterative Development.
I. Software Change Orders
The atomic unit of software work that is authorized to create, modify or obsolesce components within a
configuration baseline is called a software change orders ( SCO )
The basic fields of the SCO are Title, description, metrics, resolution, assessment & disposition
Stakeholder Environment
Many large scale projects include people in external organizations that represent other stakeholders
participating in the development process they might include
Procurement agency contract monitors
End-user engineering support personnel
Third party maintenance contractors
Independent verification & validation contractors
Representatives of regulatory agencies & others.
These stakeholder representatives also need to access to development resources so that they can
contribute value to overall effort. These stakeholders will be access through on-line
An on-line environment accessible by the external stakeholders allow them to participate in the process
a follows
Accept & use executable increments for the hands-on evaluation.
Use the same on-line tools, data & reports that the development organization uses to manage &
monitor the project
Avoid excessive travel, paper interchange delays, format translations, paper * shipping costs & other
overhead cost
INDICATORS:
An indicator is a metric or a group of metrics that provides an understanding of the software process
or software product or a software project. A software engineer assembles measures and produce
metrics from which the indicators can be derived. Two types of indicators are:
MANAGEMENT INDICATORS:
Work and progress
This metric measure the work performed over time. Work is the effort to be accomplished to complete
a certain set of tasks. The various activities of an iterative development project can be measured by
defining a planned estimate of the work in an objective measure, then tracking progress (work
completed overtime) against that plan.
The default perspectives of this metric are:
Software architecture team: - Use cases demonstrated.
Software development team: - SLOC under baseline change management, SCOs closed
Software assessment team: - SCOs opened, test hours executed and evaluation criteria meet.
Software management team: - milestones completed.
The below figure shows expected progress for a typical project with three major releases
This metric measures cost incurred over time. Budgeted cost is the planned expenditure profile over the life
cycle of the project. To maintain management control, measuring cost expenditures over the project life cycle is
always necessary. Tracking financial progress takes on an organization - specific format. Financial performance
can be measured by the use of an earned value system, which provides highly detailed cost and schedule insight.
The basic parameters of an earned value system, expressed in units of dollars, are as follows:
Expenditure Plan - It is the planned spending profile for a project over its planned schedule. Actual progress -
It is the technical accomplishment relative to the planned progress underlying the spending profile.
Actual cost: It is the actual spending profile for a project over its actual schedule.
Earned value: It is the value that represents the planned cost of the actual progress.
Cost variance: It is the difference between the actual cost and the earned value.
Schedule variance: It is the difference between the planned cost and the earned value. Of all parameters in an
earned value system, actual progress is the most subjective
Assessment: Because most managers know exactly how much cost they have incurred and how much schedule
they have used, the variability in making accurate assessments is centred in the actual progress assessment. The
default perspectives of this metric are cost per month, full-time staff per month and percentage of budget
expended.
Staffing and team dynamics
This metric measures the personnel changes over time, which involves staffing additions and reductions over
time. An iterative development should start with a small team until the risks in the requirements and architecture
have been suitably resolved. Depending on the overlap of iterations and other project specific circumstances,
staffing can vary. Increase in staff can slow overall project progress as new people consume the productive team
of existing people in coming up to speed. Low attrition of good people is a sign of success. The default
perspectives of this metric are people per month added and people per month leaving. These three management
indicators are responsible for technical progress, financial status and staffing progress.
This metric measures the average breakage per change over time. Breakage is defined as the average extent of
change, which is the amount of software baseline that needs rework and measured in source lines of code,
function points, components, subsystems, files or other units. Modularity is the average breakage trend over
time. This metric can be collected by revoke SLOC per change, by change type, by release, by components and
by subsystems.
This metric measures the average rework per change over time. Rework is defined as the average cost of change
which is the effort to analyse, resolve and retest all changes to software baselines. Adaptability is defined as the
rework trend over time. This metric provides insight into rework measurement. All changes are not created
equal. Some changes can be made in a staff- hour, while others take staff-weeks. This metric can be collected
by average hours per change, by change type, by release, by components and by subsystems.
This metric measures defect rather over time. MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is the average usage time
between software faults. It is computed by dividing the test hours by the number of type 0 and type 1 SCOs.
Maturity is defined as the MTBF trend over time. Software errors can be categorized into two types
deterministic and nondeterministic. Deterministic errors are also known as Bohr-bugs and nondeterministic
errors are also called as Heisen-bugs. Bohr-bugs are a class of errors caused when the software is stimulated in a
certain way such as coding errors. Heisen-bugs are software faults that are coincidental with a certain
probabilistic occurrence of a given situation, such as design errors. This metric can be collected by failure
counts, test hours until failure, by release, by components and by subsystems. These four quality indicators are
based primarily on the measurement of software change across evolving baselines of engineering data.
72
LIFE -CYCLE EXPECTATIONS:
There is no mathematical or formal derivation for using seven core metrics properly. However, there were
specific reasons for selecting them:
The quality indicators are derived from the evolving product rather than the artifacts.
They provide inside into the waste generated by the process. Scrap and rework metrics are a standard
measurement perspective of most manufacturing processes.
They recognize the inherently dynamic nature of an iterative development process. Rather than focus on the
value, they explicitly concentrate on the trends or changes with respect to time.
The combination of insight from the current and the current trend provides tangible indicators for management
action.
The default pattern of life cycle evolution
73
Adaptability Varying Varying Benign. Benign
METRICS AUTOMATION:
Many opportunities are available to automate the project control activities of a software project. A Software
Project Control Panel (SPCP) is essential for managing against a plan. This panel integrates data from multiple
sources to show the current status of some aspect of the project. The panel can support standard features and
provide extensive capability for detailed situation analysis. SPCP is one example of metrics automation
approach that collects, organizes and reports values and trends extracted directly from the evolving engineering
artifacts.
SPCP:
To implement a complete SPCP, the following are necessary.
Metrics primitives - trends, comparisons and progressions
A graphical user interface.
Metrics collection agents
Metrics data management server
Metrics definitions - actual metrics presentations for requirements progress, implementation progress, assessment
progress, design progress and other progress dimensions.
Actors - monitor and administrator.
Monitor defines panel layouts, graphical objects and linkages to project data. Specific monitors called roles
include software project managers, software development team leads, software architects and customers.
Administrator installs the system, defines new mechanisms, graphical objects and linkages. The whole display
is called a panel. Within a panel are graphical objects, which are types of layouts such as dials and bar charts for
information. Each graphical object displays a metric. A panel contains a number of graphical objects positioned
in a particular geometric layout. A metric shown in a graphical object is labelled with the metric type, summary
level and insurance name (line of code, subsystem, server1). Metrics can be displayed in two modes – value,
referring to a given point in time and graph referring to multiple and consecutive points in time. Metrics can be
displayed with or without control values. A control value is an existing expectation either absolute or relative
that is used for comparison with a dynamically changing metric. Thresholds are examples of control values.
74
The basic fundamental metrics classes are trend, comparison and progress.
The format and content of any project panel are configurable to the software project manager's
preference for tracking metrics of top-level interest. The basic operation of an SPCP can be
described by the following top - level use case.
i. Start the SPCP
ii. Select a panel preference
iii. Select a value or graph metric
iv. Select to superimpose controls
v. Drill down to trend
vi. Drill down to point in time.
vii. Drill down to lower levels of information
viii. Drill down to lower level of indicators.
UNIT – V