QSM Database

The QSM Project Database

New! Check out our High Performance Benchmark Service to see how you can leverage this database.

The QSM database is the cornerstone of our business. We use validated metrics collected from over 10,000 completed software projects to keep our products current with the latest tools and methods, to support our benchmarking business, to keep our customers informed as they move into new areas, and to develop better predictive algorithms.

QSM began building its database in 1978. Since that time, we have collected project data continuously, updating the database every 12 to 18 months. We have added 200-400 validated projects each year during the last 5 years.

Our primary source of data is our clients, some of whom allow QSM to include their project data in the database. QSM also collects data by permission through its ongoing consulting work in the areas of productivity assessments, estimates, and cost-to-completes.

This SLIM-Metrics chart shows Construction & Test effort for completed IT, Engineering, and Real Time systems as System Size increases.  QSM stratifies project data into homogenous subsets to reduce variation and study the behavioral characteristics of different software application domains.

Over the past 3 decades, QSM has analyzed software developments from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa. The projects span all size regimes, application types, and development methodologies. Incoming project data is examined for accuracy and completeness before it is included in the database. After inspection and validation, approximately 10,000 projects have been integrated into the QSM database.

QSM treats all contributed data as confidential. For this reason, we do not sell or release project data directly to our customers. Instead, industry trend lines are used for comparison and analysis. Due to the enormous variability in schedule, effort, and defects at any given size, project data is separated into nine application categories:

Stratifying the data by application type reduces the variability at each size range and allows for more accurate curve fitting.  One application type, the Business IT projects, has been further stratified into several sub-groupings:

There are several ways QSM clients can access the QSM database:

• Our SLIM Tools Contain Current Industry Performance Trends: QSM provides up to date trends for each of the nine application types with QSM software project estimation and benchmarking tools. Only the most recent 2-3 years of industry data is used to calculate current trend lines.
• We Answer Your Basic Questions: Our support team will respond to basic questions about the QSM database.  Let us do the research to answer your estimation and benchmarking questions! We can provide graphs and summaries that allow you to compare your projects against both industry trend lines and actual projects that are similar in size, application type, and complexity. Basic questions are research that we can accomplish in less that 4 hours. Note: more extensive research is available through our consulting group.
  
• We Provide Benchmarking Services: This service can help you assess your current levels of productivity and quality, Identify exceptional and poor performing projects, analyze the root cause of problems and provide a roadmap for improvement, and build a business case for the results of the improvements.  In addition the benchmark service will position your projects against a representative group and measure your variation from the norm.
• We Provide Client-Directed Research: QSM can be engaged to perform specific analysis using our database to address questions that you have regarding performance, cause and effect relationships or the impact of various tools or practices on software development projects. Current research from our database analysis are available for download.