Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sdd.hp.com!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ai-lab!life!ksh From: ksh@ai.mit.edu (K. Shane Hartman) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: How Is Your Project? How Do You Know? Message-ID: Date: 23 Apr 91 05:35:49 GMT References: <460@wrdis01.af.mil> Sender: news@ai.mit.edu Followup-To: comp.software-eng Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Lines: 50 In-reply-to: kmccook@wrdis01.af.mil's message of 17 Apr 91 16:13:45 GMT Software Productivity Research, Inc. (Burlington, MA) sells an integrated Estimation/Measurement/Assessment package called Checkpoint. We also provide consulting services to aid in the implementation of a measurement program and to provide guidance in the use of measurement to improve your software development process. We call this Applied Software Measurement. Checkpoint provides the ability to capture information about individual projects at several levels, including Deliverable Sizes Defects, by severity, total and origin Staffing Effort Schedule Cost Checkpoint provides support for modern functional metrics (such as function points and feature points) as well as lines of code. Finally, important business metrics such as NPV, IRR, and Risk/Value analysis can be captured. All of the above can be captured across a variable set of 140 tasks (so almost any system development methodology can be represented). Checkpoint is also capable of estimating the above quantities, based on knowledge collected in the course of consulting (our database consists of 4000 projects collected from MIS, Systems, Government and Commercial contracts collected over the course of the last 10 years). You can measure what you know and Checkpoint will estimate any missing pieces. You can compare (assess) your performance on individual projects against this knowledge base. Since hard data is inadequate for determining what was "right" or "wrong" with a particular project, Checkpoint also collects some 200 "soft factors". These soft factors (multiple choice questions) describe the Technology, Personnel, Process, and Environment associated with a particular project. The approach is similar but superior to the SEI software maturity level (the latter is based on a series of binary yes/no questions and uses a peculiar grading scheme which is not applicable to measuring incremental process imporvements). Both hard and soft data can be aggregated into a portfolio which can be used as a standard for comparison or a template for estimation. If you want more information, please contact us at 617-273-0140. Shane Hartman Director, R&D