Ten Tough Questions

As Lord Kelvin wrote more than 100 years ago, decision-making is difficult without quantitative data to support the decisions. Many organizations find they cannot answer basic questions about their software activities like these:

1. How much are you spending on software development?

2. What percentage of your projects are currently on time and on budget?

3. What is the average schedule and budget overrun for your projects?

4. Which of your current projects are most likely to fail outright?

5. What percentage of your project cost arises from avoidable rework?

6. How satisfied (quantitatively) are users of your software?

7. How do the skills of your staff compare to industry averages?

8. How do the capabilities of your organization compare to similar organizations?

9. How much (quantitatively) has your productivity improved in the past 12 months?

10. What is your plan for improving the skills of your staff and the effectiveness of your organization?

Organizations that cannot answer these questions almost certainly fall to the left side of Figure 13-2. Many organizations have never asked questions such as these and are only vaguely aware that they should be asking such questions. Considering that the business case for better software practices is so compelling, perhaps the 11th tough question should be, "What's keeping us from using better software practices now that we have seen this data?"