a valuable ‘data experience’
DESCRIPTION
There is a growing interest during last years in a better understanding of the inner meaning of ‘product value’ as perceived from the final customer, looking at possible techniques and new ways to anticipate and better capturing requirements from early stages. But even if more and more professionals and IT organizations achieve certifications on their personal knowledge or organizational maturity that should go in that direction, few attention is paid to the project closure phase and to the historicization of project data. If planned and gathered at the right level of granularity, effort data could explain and represent a valuable knowledge base – jointly with some requirement metrics - about how to create and reinforce the value to deliver to customer. This paper provides a list of possible improvement actions derived from practical experience that can bring more value to software products moving from better and more accurate project management and measurement processes.TRANSCRIPT
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VASOP – 1° Workshop on Valuable Software Products
Limerick (Ireland), June 21 2010
The impact of historical data on your estimates and organizational maturity levels
A valuable ‘Data Experience’
Luigi Buglione, Ph.D.Process Improvement & Measurement Specialist
Industry Business UnitEngineering.IT
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Engineering At a glance
ERP ECMIT Security
Plant ManagementSystem
Broadband & MediaManaged Operations
System Int. & System Int. & ConsultancyConsultancy
OutsourcingOutsourcing
SoftwareSoftware
7070
1010
2020
8080
2020
5454
2727
1919
8080
1010
1010
FinanceFinance IndustryIndustry TELCOTELCO UtilitiesUtilities
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ResearchResearch and and DevelopmentDevelopment
3535
1919
4646
PA & HCPA & HC
_ The first Italian ICT player
_ more than 730 M/€ revenues_ 1000 clients_ 6,300 IT specialists
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Data Experience Goals of the presentation
G1. Introduce the ‘value’ issue observing the possible measurable entities and the value chain G2. Observing the state-of-the-art in Software Engineering practices, noting some improvement points G3. Propose some tips from experience for improving product value by historical data and data management in general
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Data Experience Agenda
• Introduction– Defining ‘value’– A bit of humour…
• State-of-the-art– Project repositories– Product Standards– Requirement Management
• Some proposals for improving product value– Usage of standards– Refine your PHD– Build better estimation models– Build balanced measurement programs
• Conclusions & Prospects• Q & A
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Some Questions
QQ: how (and from who) should be perceived?
QQ: is there a way to measure it?
QQ: which possible improvements for achieving it?
QQ: what is ‘value’?
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Word(s) & Concept(s)
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Perspectives
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Perspectives
Source: QEST model webpage: http://www.semq.eu/leng/modtechqlm.htm
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Perspectives
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Measurable Entities
Resources ProductProcess
Project
Organization/ SBU
Measurement
fsu
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Introduction Defining ‘Value’: Measurement & Data
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Data Experience Agenda
• Introduction– Defining ‘value’– A bit of humour…
• State-of-the-art– Project repositories– Product Standards– Requirement Management
• Some proposals for improving product value– Usage of standards– Refine your PHD– Build better estimation models– Build balanced measurement programs
• Conclusions & Prospects• Q & A
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State-of-the-art Project Repositories
• URL: www.isbsg.org • release 11 (2009) -- 5052 projects -- 100+ attributes• NextNext: e.g. right now, no splitted effort by ReqType (FUR/NFR)
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State-of-the-art Product Standards
Software Product• ISO/IEC 9126-x (Software Product Quality)• ISO/IEC 25012:2008 (Data Quality)• …
…but• even if those norms & standards exists from years, often not used• in particular, few development for the non-functional side (e.g. productivity is typically measured as the ratio between UFP/Effort; where UFP is a size measure from sw product FUR, while effort is referred to the whole project scope)
Usability/Accessibility• ISO 9241-11• W3C’s WCAG 2.0• …
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State-of-the-art Requirement Management
Huge set of possible process measures• …but often not applied and traceable in Project & Quality Plans• …not always catched and properly elicited hearing stakeholders the less requirements elicited, the lower the quality perceived from the final product/service it’s a process problem about the “Requirement Management” process (e.g. REQM PA in CMMI)• …not often properly classified and managed
By typeBy type: FUR (Functional User Requirements) vs NFR (Non-Functional Requirements) By entityBy entity: org, project, resource, process, product …
• …not always used to link different SLC phases Coverage indices w/Test Cases (by test type), w/SRS, ...
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Data Experience Agenda
• Introduction– Defining ‘value’– A bit of humour…
• State-of-the-art– Project repositories– Product Standards– Requirement Management
• Some proposals for improving product value– Usage of standards– Refine your PHD– Build better estimation models– Build balanced measurement programs
• Conclusions & Prospects• Q & A
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Some proposals… Usage of Standards
…in everyday practices• Large (potential) embedded experience and tips from projects often not historicized• Closure phase not always properly run (even if well known – see 5° PMBOK phase)• Low knowledge level of ISO/IEEE standardsstandards• An example: ISO/IEC 14764:2006ISO/IEC 14764:2006 (Maintenance ProcessProcess)
The more granular the classification of maintenance types (4 sub-types) the more adequate the (possible) ways to manage contracts, because more modularized fares & prices
More projects properly managed More saved resources and value to be brought into final products (e.g. BSC strategic map)
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Some proposals… Refine your PHD
…with more attributes• PHD: Project Historical Database• CMMI-DEV OPD (Organizational Process Definition), SP 1.4 (Establish the Org’s Measurement Repository)• To be used for better clustering from the whole repository• Introduce more attributes / split main figures into more granular sub-types. E.g.:
SLC phases by ReqType (Functional vs. Non-Functional) Effort by ReqType (derived from FUR/NFR) Estimator/Measurer name for (some) size figures Measured entity (projects/sub-projects/change requests, …) No. of Requirements generating Elementary Processes (EP) for FSM methods, classified
by BFC Type …
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Some proposals… Build better Estimation Models
Source: Gencel C. & Buglione L., Do Different Functionality Types Affect the Relationship between Software Functional Size and Effort?, Proceedings of IWSM/MENSURA 2007, Palma de Mallorca (Spain), November 5-8 2007, pp. 235-246
)()()()(_ 3210 WBRBXBEBBEffortNW k++++=
…using more independent variables• when using FSM methods, e.g. use combinations of 2+ BFC types
IFPUG BFC (EI, EO, EQ, ILF, EIF) COSMIC BFC (E, X, R, W)
• Results: increased R2 using the same dataset
Preconditions• Historicize project data at the proper level of granularity. E.g.
FSU at the BFC type level (by frequencies and – eventually – weigthed values) Effort at the SLC phase and/or by ReqType and/or… Defects by severity/priority class and/or resolution time by phase, and/or…
• Skill people – not only estimators – a bit more on Statistics• Use something more than averages!
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Some proposals… Build Balanced Measurement Programs
URL: Balancing Multiple Perspective (BMP) webpage http://www.semq.eu/leng/modtechbmp.htm
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Data Experience Agenda
• Introduction– Defining ‘value’– A bit of humour…
• State-of-the-art– Project repositories– Product Standards– Requirement Management
• Some proposals for improving product value– Usage of standards– Refine your PHD– Build better estimation models– Build balanced measurement programs
• Conclusions & Prospects• Q & A
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Data Experience Conclusions & Perspectives
• ‘Value’ Term very difficult to catch (elusive) Referable to different entities software product/service Different techniques in the TQM arena (e.g. QFD; AHP; …) Difficult to size and to be estimated IFPUG FPA for sizing FUR What about NFR? And a structured EAM (Entity-Attribute-Measure) analysis? The process is not the product… what value bring historical data into software
processes?• State-of-the-art
Project historical data (PHD) historicize your own data ISBSG r11 (2009) – 5052 projects for starting a benchmarking program are all the fields
of your interest contained/stretched? Take into account also software product NFR e.g. ISO 9126, 9241-11, WCAG, etc… Most of the product perceivable value is derived from a proper requirement management
(and elicitation) what it is our capability level in Requirement Engineering? Some Proposals
Use standards in everyday practices increase awareness and lower the cost for analysis in bid and technical solutions, adopting/reusing/modifying yet existing solutions
Refine your organizational PHD with more attributes introduce/refine possible new attributes at the project/process/product level helping in better clustering datasets
Build estimation models using more independent variables (e.g. +BFC for FSM methods) Build a balanced measurement program use BPM for choosing few, more vital measures
balanced by perspective and causally linked, lowering the overall cost of measurement and increasing the informative ROI in the organization
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Data Experience Creating ‘value’: learning from Comics
Source: http://blog.visualmotive.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/mccloud_understanding_comics.jpg
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Data Experience Q && A
Thanks for your attentionThanks for your attention!!
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Misurare il softwareQuantità, qualità, standard e
miglioramento di processo nell’Information & CommunicationTechnology
Franco Angeli, 2008 – 3a edizione Collana: Informatica ed Organizzazioni
pp. 380 -Volume 724.20 ISBN 978-88-464-9271-5
Luigi Buglione
www.semq.eu/leng/booksms.htm
Part of copyrights are donated to
FISM (Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla)
Further readings… Misurare il software
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We care of your problems and we have in mind a solution
Thanks for your Attention !
Luigi Buglione
Industry, Services & Infrastructures
Tel. +39-06.8307.4472Fax +39-06.8307.4200Cell. +39-335.1214813
Via R.Morandi 3200148 Roma
www.eng.it [email protected]