Software by Numbers: Low-Risk, High-Return Development

Rating:
Summary: Ground-breaking
Review: "Software by Numbers" is yet another book I would like any manager involved in my working life to read and re-read.

The authors describe an Incremental Funding Method (IFM) for scheduling incremental development of software which optimizes the Return on Investment (ROI) by having the requirements engineered into Minimum Marketable Features (MMF) with concrete, monetary value.

The book is very light (less than 200 pages) but packed with interesting material. I read most of the book during a flight from Finland to Germany and finished the book on my way home. Despite the minimal page count, the authors manage to explain why their method is desperately needed and how it fits to existing software processes such as RUP and XP. They also describe the business case for incremental architecture and different strategies for sequencing MMFs and Architectural Elements (AE) for maximum ROI over the project's lifetime.

The only downside I found for this book is that I would've needed some more baby-steps support for the actual calculations (sequence-adjusted net present values etc.). I'm sure others will be hoping to see some more real world examples of feature deconstruction and sequencing as well. On the other hand, I really appreciate the fact that the authors made the effort of putting up a spreadsheet online for supporting their method.

Overall, an excellent book. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent approach to maximize IT business impact
Review: For the past five years I have been a consultant, helping companies analyze the link between the products they buy and the financial impact those products make on their businesses. During that time I've poured over numerous books on the subject of ROI and tried to make sense of them in the context of real world environments. Most books fail to make a contribution to real world problems because they are typically too academic, unrealistic or they are too vague.

However, I'm very impressed with this book.

This book clearly outlines an excellent, flexible methodology for real world technology resource management that MAXIMIZES BUSINESS IMPACT. It's different from other approaches I've seen in the past. I can tell from the authors' examples and analysis that there is a real synthesis between disciplined academic approach and real life project management. Even after five years of study, there were a lot of new ideas that I hadn't seen elsewhere.

I think this book applies to a wide audience within IT development. CIOs can gain a lot of ground from reading this book and instilling this approach across their organization. Technology managers who have come up the ranks from being smart technicians MUST read this book to take the leap from coder to business manager. Business analysts ought to read this book to optimize their tradeoff of features and functions versus resources.

I think that if my clients embraced the approach in this book, they'd see a lot of cash crunch problems disappear. I recommend it to all of them.

Rating:
Summary: A breath of fresh air
Review: This book draws from a number of existing, proven practices and combines them into a synergistic approach in which the whole exceeds the sum of the parts. The focus of this book is iterative development, so if you are in an environment that employs the waterfall development life cycle the some of the material will not be as useful. As a side note - the waterfall SDLC is anything but dead, unfortunately. First, the parts - there are two main ideas set forth in the book:

(1) Viewing software as a collection of minimum marketable features (MMFs), which requires a radical shift in thinking. This is especially true because most of us have been trained to approach software from a function points or source lines of code (or from the viewpoint of the constructive cost model). The MMF view is ideal for determining the value of software to an organization as a business proposition, whereas FPs, SLOCs and other methods are for estimating development effort. Adding MMF means you have a new dimension to consider when making the go/no-go decision to proceed with a development project, making it an ideal factor during discovery and inception, and for governance purposes.

(2) Incrementally funding development--called "Incremental Funding Method" or "IFM" for short--which is similar to the progress payments concept in earned value project management. In essence IFM ties funding to delivery, which is ideally suited to iterative development. There are safeguards incorporated into this approach, such as a requirement for accurate cost forecasts, which have obvious dependencies on schedule and resources. However, since IFM is tied to net present value, this is where true value to be achieved from the software viewed as MMFs is determined. Since iterative development a fluid approach and accurate forecasts cannot be made beyond a single iteration the authors have devised an innovative solution to the problem by using sequence-adjusted net present value, which ties NPV to MMF and adjusts them through each iteration.

The whole - this book treats software development as value creation, and provides a workable solution to establishing and managing the value of software to business throughout the development life cycle. If the book ended here it would only be theory. What the authors did to make this book essential reading and to add credibility to their approach is provide two case studies--one for the RUP development approach and one for those in the agile camp--as well as a wealth of other information in the later chapters that show how to effectively deal with intangibles and decision making. What is remarkable is this is done in less than 200 pages. This book is an important work and should be read by IT executive management, project managers and software engineering managers.