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How To Benchmark Applications Development or Maintenance: Theory and Practice David G. Rogers

How To Benchmark Applications Development or Maintenance: Theory and Practice David G. Rogers. How to benchmark Apps, in a nutshell. Sponsor the benchmark at a senior level Understand the risks, costs and timescales Be actively involved in the benchmark

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How To Benchmark Applications Development or Maintenance: Theory and Practice David G. Rogers

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  1. How To Benchmark Applications Development or Maintenance:Theory and PracticeDavid G. Rogers

  2. How to benchmark Apps, in a nutshell • Sponsor the benchmark at a senior level • Understand the risks, costs and timescales • Be actively involved in the benchmark • Passive benchmarking (“Speak when you’re spoken to”) is bad for your health • Cater for the measurement problems unique to Applications • Watch the UKSMA website – launching initiative to solve major AM measurement problem • Plan round the comparison problems 30 mins 10 mins David G. Rogers

  3. Senior sponsorship • In-house – • IT director • Outsourced – • Customer’s IT director (not just contract manager) • Supplier’s relationship and delivery managers (not just contract manager) • Give the benchmark the level of management commitment warranted by the risks David G. Rogers

  4. The Risks • The result might ruin formerly win-win relationships, damage careers, cost many jobs • Relationship of the Applications service supplier with its customers is at risk, whether in-house or outsourced • What will senior management do if a benchmark result says: “Your AM costs 3 times the market average”? Or “ … 1/3 the market average”? • First, they will decide whether they believe it. • If they don’t, reputations are damaged • If they do … David G. Rogers

  5. The Risks • The result might be wrong • Mistakes abound • Not necessarily (but possibly) by the benchmarker • The quality of the benchmark is your responsibility. Don’t delegate all responsibility for quality to the benchmarker • Watch the detail • Check all data going into the process • Ensure all services and all costs are reported(this may seem obvious, but …) • Ensure in writing that you have the right to check for possible arithmetic errors by the benchmarker (they are only human) • Build in cross-checks where possible David G. Rogers

  6. The Costs • Major cash costs in benchmarking Applications: • Benchmarker’s fee • FP counting costs could easily be higher • Staffing • One senior (reporting to the Sponsor) manager responsible • Full-time benchmark manager • System experts when required David G. Rogers

  7. Timescales • Only passive benchmarks keep to the benchmarker’s schedule • In a “Passive benchmark” you: • Do only what the benchmarker tells you • Supply only the information you are asked for • Sit back and wait for The Answer • Passive benchmarking is bad for your health! David G. Rogers

  8. Some other stuff you MUST get right • Objectives • Crucial but usually easy if outsourced • Primary reason for outsourcing: 48% say “Reduce cost” • (that explains a lot … imagine recruiting senior executives on the same principle …) • Crucial but slippery if in-house • Like-for-like comparisons • Very hard to achieve … you have to help the benchmarkers • Releases • Very hard to match output to input … don’t leave it all to the benchmarker David G. Rogers

  9. Application Maintenance • The key metric: £ / FP maintained • Commercially crucial measurement • (see Risks above!) David G. Rogers

  10. How do you obtain £ / FP? • £ : the price to you of running AM • FP : the size of the maintained portfolio How is FP obtained? • Count the FPs: +/- 7.5%, but usually much too expensive • “Fast counts” etc: less accurate (+/- 20% or more) • Too inaccurate if results are commercially important • Much used: BACKFIRINGCount Source Lines Of Code (SLOC), and “backfire” to FPs using average ratios David G. Rogers

  11. How accurate is backfiring? • In one recent benchmark, benchmarker claimed +/- 10% • Most experts say +/- 100% to 400% • The experts differ – but if the latter,benchmarking represents a HUGE commercial risk … • … so it is financially important to find out David G. Rogers

  12. Initiative launched to accumulate proof • Nothing even remotely confidential:only size matters • No dates, times, costs, prices, regions • No names except the verifying UKSMA member • The result will bear the imprimatur of UKSMA, and will be in the public domain David G. Rogers

  13. The desired outcome • The usefulness of SLOC as a metric for use in benchmarks will be finally and permanently quantified • This will benefit EVERYONE WHO EVER BENCHMARKS APPLICATIONS David G. Rogers

  14. Primary contact for this UKSMA initiative:David@RogersTeam.co.uk+44 7812 189 672Any questions, suggestions or offers of data?David Rogers is an EDS employee, but in this initiative is acting solely on UKSMA’s behalf. David G. Rogers

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