QSM News

QSM News

QSM Releases SLIM 9.0 for Enhanced Data Collection and Management

QSM is pleased to announce the availability of SLIM Suite 9.0. The new release provides users with enhanced data collection features to more accurately plan software development projects based on industry statistics and trends.

This updated version of QSM’s cornerstone product improves integration between the desktop and the web and streamlines data entry, historical data collection, and analysis to increase data quality and accuracy throughout the software development lifecycle.

In addition to integration and data entry improvements, other new features introduced with today’s release include:

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QSM News

QSM Selected as Gartner 2015 "Cool Vendor" for IT Vendor Management Services

We are pleased to announce that QSM has been included in the list of 2015 "Cool Vendors" in the IT Vendor Management category by Gartner, Inc.

Each year, Gartner identifies a collection of companies in key technology areas and publishes a series of research reports that objectively highlight these companies from a customer perspective. The reports are meant to be succinct, filter through hype, hone in on vetted and proven innovations, and identify those vendors that are creating unique value in their market space. Many of the organizations that Gartner profiles are transforming the way businesses and government agencies leverage technology in innovative and useful ways. As the universe of outsourcing and third-party IT services continues to expand, Gartner singled out three front-runners in the burgeoning field of strategic vendor management.

 “It is very gratifying to be recognized by Gartner,” says Joseph A. Madden, QSM’s Vice President of Professional Services. “The 2015 Cool Vendors in Vendor Management is an independent and well-researched piece, and we consider inclusion to be testament to our thought leadership and almost 40 years of contributions to the discipline of using project metrics to make smarter IT investments.” Madden added, “the unique QSM edge is to harness historical project information and quantitative measurement to remove a lot of the politics, emotion and bias from vendor relationships: the data seldom lies and has no agenda.”

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Consulting QSM News

Twin-SPIN Presentation: Does Agile Scale? - A Short Case Study

On Thursday, April 9, QSM's Pam Simonovich will present Does Agile Scale? - A Short Case Study, hosted at the University of Minnesota.

This presentation uses completed project data as an example to show that when organizations make a conscious decision to adopt Agile methods in conjunction with other traditional development methodologies, these approaches can be effectively scaled and implemented for larger projects and enterprises – to a point.

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QSM News Agile

Announcing the QSM Software Almanac: 2014 Research Edition

QSM Software Almanac: 2014 Research EditionAfter many months of research, I’m pleased to announce that today QSM has released the 2014 version of its Software Almanac.  A follow-up to the previous version released in 2006, this 200+ page book includes more than 20 articles on topics such as metrics, agile methodology, long term planning, and trends in software development.  

The Almanac is one of the few research compendiums that studies how software development has evolved since 1980.  The source of this research is the QSM Metrics Database, which contains data from over 10,000 completed software projects from North and South America, Australia, Europe, Africa, and Asia, representing over 740 million lines of code, 600+ development languages, and 105,833 person years of effort.  

The field of software development has long focused on finding predictable and repeatable processes that improve quality and productivity, which is why many organizations are taking an interest in agile methodology. As such, this year’s Almanac focuses on this topic, which has generated increased interest since the 2006 release. Specifically, it takes a close look at projects that have been based on agile methodologies and successfully completed within the past five years.

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QSM News Articles

The Importance of Grooming the Backlog: An Interview with Andy Berner

In agile development, getting the backlog ready and grooming it take serious consideration and work. You need to plan, budget for, and track this work. In a recent interview with Cameron Philipp-Edmonds of StickyMinds, Andy Berner talks about his upcoming presentation for Agile Development Conference East, the importance of keeping a well-groomed backlog, the pitfalls of the impossible zone, and why it's vital that you and your team keep your tools serving you and not the other way around.

Read the full interview transcript here!

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QSM News Agile

From Proposal to Project: An Interview with Larry Putnam, Jr.

In the software project management field, projects go badly about 43% of the time and fail completely 18% of the time. While there are several reasons for this, and plenty of blame to go around, one of the easiest ways to reduce the risk is to start at the beginning – with the proposal. In a recent interview with Cameron Philipp-Edmonds of StickyMinds, Larry Putnam, Jr. talks about the importance of the proposal when executing a successful project. He identifies five key questions that should be answered before any project starts and how software estimation ties into the proposal process.

Read the full interview transcript here!

QSM's Doug Putnam Discusses Data Management on WUSA9's Government Contracting Weekly

In a recent interview on WUSA9's Government Contracting Weekly, a show devoted to winning government contracts, QSM Co-CEO Doug Putnam discussed data management with the show's host, Jim McCarthy. QSM was founded by Larry Putnam, Sr. in 1978 because he saw the need to supply quantitative evidence when justifying budgets for large government software projects. Doug explains the importance of leveraging quantitative measurement in today's dynamic goverment IT environment, from managing team size to improving quality. He also identifies the core metrics to track when starting your own metrics program. Watch the full episode above!

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QSM News

Announcing SLIM 8.2 for Resource Demand Management and Capacity Planning

QSM is pleased to announce the release of SLIM Suite 8.2, which, for the first time, provides the ability to perform enhanced top-down estimation for capacity planning. Unlike other resource demand management tools that rely on bottom-up estimates, QSM is the first in the industry to provide detailed resource breakdowns, utilizing a more accurate top-down approach. Top-down estimation accounts for even the unpredictable aspects of IT project implementation that a bottom-up approach does not, such as unrealistic project goals, miscommunication among team members and rework, which may account for up to 60% of the total effort on a project. With this information, project managers can more confidently choose the project team and assign the detailed tasks to the team at hand, improving accuracy for planning and executing successful IT projects while fully utilizing existing resources for individual projects, as well as longer term resource capacity planning. New APIs for this resource information allow organizations to integrate SLIM with the enterprise resource management (PPM) tools that they are currently using. 

In addition to top-down resource demand, other new features introduced with the 8.2 release include:

Flattening the Cone of Uncertainty

Estimation Cone of Uncertainty

image via Techwell

A large part of software estimation is dealing with the unknown. At the earliest stages of a software project, the uncertainty surrounding schedule and budget is at its highest and diminishes as a project reaches completion. In the estimation community, we refer to this as the "cone of uncertainty." Of course, it is at the widest point of this cone where estimation is typically needed. So how can organizations keep their customers feeling secure and informed when requirements are still being flushed out and budgets aren't yet established? In his recent a blog post on Techwell, Noel Wurst identifies strategies for flattening the dreaded cone of uncertainty.

Read the full post here!

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QSM News Estimation

Smaller Project Teams Are More Productive

It's no secret we're advocates of smaller teams, but it's always nice when others agree. Baseline's Tony Kontzer leveraged some of our most recent data for an informative slideshow about team size.

At one time or another, almost all information technology professionals have heard cries for more resources. They may even have been the one asking for help. "If only there were more people available for this project," they've said, "then maybe it would get done on time." Well, it turns out that more staffing is not the equivalent of optimal staffing. In fact, smaller project teams are more productive and can complete projects cheaper and faster than larger ones, according to a recent study from software life cycle consultancy Quantitative Software Management. That should be good news for IT departments that have seen their ranks depleted in recent years.

To see more results from QSM's recent study, read Don Beckett's post on the correlation between staffing and schedule.

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