How to Evaluate Cost-Effectiveness of Software Projects and Process Improvement
Today I finished a training course for Siemens India on cost effectiveness of software development projects and process improvement initiatives. The course was conducted over LiveMeeting in 5 consecutive days. 23 people from 4 different locations participated in the training. We covered basic techniques for evaluating cost-effectiveness, such as NPV and Real Productivity, and worked out several examples. Part I focused on Project Valuation and Part II focused on Process Improvement. Each day’s session started with a check-in that addressed outstanding items, reviewed concepts, and discussed solutions to take-home exercises from the previous session.
As the common context, I used that of a mid-sized organization in the health informatics sector with new ventures in its project pipeline and with several new ideas for improving its software processes. The examples were mostly drawn from this context and organized as HBR style cases. The cases addressed project staging, incremental development, pair programming, code inspections, role of evidence, and test-driven development.
The event was a repeat of an earlier course I gave in June for for Siemens in Erlangen, Germany. But I changed the materials and format significantly to fit the new interaction style and in response to the feedback I have received after the Erlangen version. I divided the material into 5 modules, incorporated smaller examples, and added take-home exercises for each module. I also frequently used LiveMeeting’s poll feature to engage the audience. All in all, I think the format worked very well, surprisingly with very few technology glitches. The tech support supplied by host was very good.
The course description is available here. If you were a participant and haven’t filled out the course evaluation form, you can find it here. I have opened this post for comments: if you have any, well, what are you waiting for? Do fire.
