Preface

The purpose of this book is to teach useful concepts in return on investment of software process improvement or ROI of SPI. The title was carefully chosen to convey its meaning and purpose. "Return on investment" was selected because this book teaches software practitioners how to measure the value of their work. "Software process improvement" is used to emphasize the highly specialized field of increasing productivity and quality. "Metrics for project managers and software engineers " also has a very special meaning, which is to emphasize software measurement.

This book is designed to realize several objectives. The basic objective is to introduce ROI concepts, briefly describe the field of SPI, and highlight important approaches to SPI. The second objective is to explain the relevance of ROI measurement. ROI is explained for commercial firms as well as large, nonprofit organizations. The overriding objective is to show software practitioners how to measure software processes and determine their value. The final objective is to point out that SPI is extremely difficult, expensive, and risk intensive . Yet, the reader is taught how to overcome all too typical resistance to change using the ROI of SPI.

ROI is a basic but powerful tool for evaluating costs and benefits. Costs and benefits are expressed in economic or monetary terms. That is, ROI is all about measuring value in dollars and cents . First, the benefits are converted into monetary terms and accumulated . Then the costs are accounted for in great detail. Once the benefits and costs have been determined, ROI is a rather elementary matter. ROI is simply the ratio of benefits to costs, less the costs of course. The notion of net present value and breakeven point analysis is introduced, and all of these concepts are related to software project and quality management.

SPI, on the other hand, presents a rather ominous challenge. SPI is a controversial and even much maligned subdiscipline of software engineering. SPI is the application of organizational change for software engineers and software engineering. That is, SPI is the act of changing and improving software engineering processes. The software engineering processes are changed for a reason. That reason is usually increased productivity, faster cycle times, better product quality, and happier customers. However, SPI is often performed for the sake of SPI. Software engineering processes are usually changed for the sake of changing them. Rarely is their performance measured, analyzed , and used as a basis for improvement. This book covers the field of SPI in enough depth to sort through some of the more challenging aspects of change.

However, this book goes beyond the field of SPI. It takes the reader on a journey through SPI measurement. That is, this book shows the reader how to measure software process performance. It also shows how to transform process performance into monetary or economic terms.

Several pervasive issues are addressed in this book. One is to solve seemingly difficult problems in software measurement. The harder part of ROI of SPI is not counting the costs but counting the benefits. A major contribution is teaching practitioners how to identify benefits, quantify them, and express them in economic terms. This book also emphasizes the importance of counting the costs. Many software practitioners avoid costs, because they may be embarrassingly high.

Finally, this book is not designed to promote SPI. It is designed to show how difficult SPI can be, how expensive it is, and how to be successful with SPI in the long run. Software engineering is a difficult problem, but it is not an impossible one.

Value-added materials available from the Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com

At J. Ross Publishing we are committed to providing today's professional with practical, hands-on tools that enhance the learning experience and give readers an opportunity to apply what they have learned. That is why we offer free ancillary materials available for download on this book and all participating Web Added Value ¢ publications . These online resources may include interactive versions of material that appears in the book or supplemental templates, worksheets, models, plans, case studies, proposals, spreadsheets, and assessment tools, among other things. Whenever you see the WAV ¢ symbol in any of our publications, it means bonus materials accompany the book and are available from the Web Added Value Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com/wav.

The free downloads available for ROI of Software Process Improvement consist of valuable detailed software process improvement (SPI) cost models for SW-CMM , ISO 9001:2000, and CMMI . They include spreadsheets with metrics and models to calculate costs, benefits, benefit/cost ratio, net present value, return on investment, and breakeven point. These documents are available from the Web Added Value ¢ Download Resource Center at www.jrosspub.com/wav.

The ROI Model is a comprehensive spreadsheet and data source for estimating the ROI of the Software Inspection Process, Personal Software Process ^SM , Team Software Process ^SM , Software Capability Maturity Model , ISO 9001, and Capability Maturity Model Integration . It contains detailed analytical worksheets for estimating the costs, benefits, B/CR, ROI%, NPV, and breakeven point of inspections, PSP ^SM , TSP ^SM , SW-CMM , ISO 9001, and CMMI . As an educational instrument, it will help readers master SPI ROI concepts and validate results presented in the book. It is also an excellent tool for large organizations, mid- sized firms, and small enterprises to conduct unprecedented ROI simulations using their own data.

The CMMI Cost Model is the first cost model ever created for the CMMI or SW-CMM community since the debut of CMMI . It provides an unprecedented glimpse into the economics of CMMI and is a comprehensive, highly scalable cost estimation model and budgeting spreadsheet for accurately estimating CMMI implementation costs. It is based on the author's practical real-world experience developing CMMI and SW-CMM strategic plans for multiple international clients in the Far East, Europe, and United States. The CMMI Cost Model is based on a highly sophisticated, yet powerfully simplistic spreadsheet that consists of a work breakdown structure which quantitatively mirrors the architecture of CMMI . It is also based on real-world Delphi techniques and input data for accurately estimating the complete costs of implementing CMMI policies, procedures, and evidence-of-use. The model is completely scalable for organizations of all shapes and sizes and can be easily tailored using simple Visual Basic macros.

The SW-CMM Cost Model is a common-sense cost model that provides a rare glimpse into the economics of SW-CMM for performing strategic planning of SW-CMM initiatives. It consists of a streamlined bottom-up cost estimation model and budgeting spreadsheet for rapidly estimating SW-CMM implementation costs. It can be used to produce highly scalable SW-CMM cost estimates and timelines for organizations of all shapes and sizes in a matter of minutes. This model has been successfully used by small, medium, and large high-tech firms to achieve SW-CMM accreditation in record time.

The ISO 9001 Cost Model is a bottom-up budgeting spreadsheet for accurately estimating the costs of implementing ISO 9001 and quantitatively mirrors the architecture of ISO 9001:2000. It was painstakingly, meticulously, and conscientiously designed and calibrated using data from the author's own firsthand experience implementing ISO 9001. It was validated using multiple international parametric cost models for accuracy and analytically compared to comprehensive North American ISO 9001 surveys. It is comprised of a simple one-page spreadsheet, which yields highly accurate ISO 9001 cost estimates in minutes, and can be easily tailored to productivity levels for almost any organization.

If you are interested in obtaining a more comprehensive package in support of the book and free downloads, a complete 169-page IDEF0 Methodology is available for sale in PDF and AI0 Win formats at www.jrosspub.com.

This document is an interconnected enterprise model for rapidly, easily, and authoritatively estimating the ROI of SPI methods such as the Software Inspection Process, Personal Software Process ^SM , Team Software Process ^SM , Software Capability Maturity Model , ISO 9001 and Capability Maturity Model Integration .

The IDEFO Methodology is a watershed download for large corporations and nonprofit organizations, which spend millions of dollars on SPI annually. It is also very useful to small- to medium-sized high-tech firms for optimizing the value of their investments in SPI. It will help these companies effectively compete with large blue-chip firms, without having to spend millions of dollars on SPI. It also serves as the perfect tool for the academic community by helping scientists conduct state-of-the-art research in ROI, SPI, and software metrics and deliver just-in-time learning modules to further the education of 21st century students.

This groundbreaking IDEFO Methodology , in conjunction with the book and the free downloads available from the WAV section of the J. Ross Publishing Web site, will save the high-technology community thousands of hours of development time. The IDEFO Methodology establishes a highly extensible and adaptable framework, foundation, and blueprint for creating automated commercial ROI tools, enterprise policies and procedures for ROI, and just-in-time training and educational programs, curricula, and modules in ROI.