Misleading Metrics

Come across this interesting article over the Gantthead

The software development industry has a poor track record for developing and employing effective software metrics. This is because most of the metrics selected are tangential to the true goal of software development--delivering business value--and instead focus on software attributes and accounting measures.

Metrics such as lines-of-code per developer week, function points created, hours worked or budget consumed appear to be important measures, but they have dangerous and counterproductive implications. The use of these metrics reward the wrong behavior; the phrase "you get what you measure" highlights the problem. By tracking lines of code written, visible and unconscious incentives to generate lots of code are established. On the surface, this may seem attractive. As a manger of a project, it is gratifying to see lots of code being written. But what is really required is functionality completed, business value generated and customers satisfied.

The more code generated, the harder a system is to maintain and extend. With incentives like lines-of-code written, how do value-adding activities like refactoring simplifications appear? Reducing 20,000 lines of code to 15,000 is a good thing, but from the lines-of-code perspective, it looks like the project is going backward.

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Implementing Agile at a Team Level

There are many benefits for the Organizations and team in the agile approach. Attend the following webinar on Implementing agile at a team level.

Organizations eager to take advantage of the benefits touted by Agilists may inappropriately attempt an all or nothing-at-all, top-down approach to Agile adoption. However, experience has shown that successful Agile adoptions must always begin at the team level and must be guided by a clear, step-wise approach. In this view of both Agile maturity and scaling, Jean borrows from the Lean Thinking principles of attaining total value delivery: perfect your ability to maintain Flow of value, learn to use the principle of Pull in order to deliver even more value, and embrace an organizational imperative to Innovate so that value is forever redefined and re-emerging.

Register for the Web Seminar

Article - Seven Habits of Effective programmers

Software Projects need effective & skilled programmers to deliver on time without compromising on the assured quality. Philip Chu share his experiences with Software Releases and the comes up with a list of seven habits that makes normal programmers effective.

The article Seven Habits of Effective Programmers has been originally published at Technicat

Abstract

As a software engineer, you might want any number of things out of your job - a steady paycheck, the opportunity to work on interesting projects, a springboard to the next better job, or maybe you just like hanging out with other programmers. But by "effective", I mean the ability to complete projects in a timely manner with the expected quality. After working on dozens of software releases, I believe the following practices will bring you there, and while they may involve sticking your neck out, I'd like to think they will also advance your professional reputation, career longevity, and personal satisfaction.

Web Seminar: Future-Proofing Your SOA Applications

Source from SD TIMES

Web Seminar: Model-Driven Development for SOA

WEDNESDAY, April 25, 2007

11:00 am Eastern | 8:00 am Pacific | 4:00 pm London | 5:00 pm Paris

SOA means composite applications - and the best way to design, build, and future-proof your composite SOA applications is through model-driven development.

Join Stephen Hendrick, group vice president of IDC's Application Development and Deployment Research Group, for a fascinating Web seminar that explores standards-based model-driven development.

You'll learn why model-driven development is the only way to properly approach SOA, how to save time and money through reuse, tips for remaining agile, and techniques for system-wide simulation and model-based testing.

Speaker:

Stephen D. Hendrick,

Group Vice President,

IDC's Application Development and Deployment Research Group

Moderator:

Edward J. Correia, Editor, Software Test & Performance

http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=41741&s=1&k=BF34681227A871497CFF3C78B79C168B&partnerref=bzmedia3

Web Seminar: Getting the Right People on the Right Projects

SD TIMES | WEB SEMINAR
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Web Seminar: Getting the Right People on the Right Projects
WEDNESDAY, April 18, 2007 2:00 pm Eastern | 11:00 am Pacific


Completing projects isn't enough anymore. The real challenge is building applications that are on target, on deadline, and on budget, to save your company money and provide a competitive edge. Therefore, ensuring you've got the right people on the right projects at the right time is more important than ever. That means effective project management.

Come to this no-cost SD Times Web seminar, sponsored by Serena, to learn how to use Project and Portfolio Management to help improve, shorten and reduce the cost of application development. PPM provides a single source of truth for all projects and resources within IT and across the enterprise.

John Scumniotales, co-creator of the Scrum agile methodology, will teach you how to leverage PPM to optimize your application development process. You'll see how to:

* Capture and assess incoming demand.
* Manage and effectively allocate resources.
* Make informed trade-offs as projects change.
* Measure progress and track project costs.

Also, one lucky attendee of this Web seminar will win his/her choice of a 30GB Apple iPod or the hot new Apple TV! Get on top of your projects on Wednesday, April 18 - register today!

Register here for the Web Seminar

SPEAKER
John Scumniotales, Vice President of Product Management, Serena Software

MODERATOR
David Rubinstein, Editor-in-Chief, SD Times

If you are unable to attend the live event you may still register and will receive an e-mail when the on-demand version becomes available.