Software Productivity Baseline and Benchmarking

QSM helps you level-set expectations for future software project success.

The good, the bad, and the costly.

Designed For: Executives who want to better understand IT productivity and quality assessments and comparisons.

Do you really know if your IT investments are paying off? Do you know how your software team’s productivity and quality compare to organizations building similar products?

QSM is ready to help.

We'll build you a productivity baseline for your current situation, and then we’ll help you identify why your 1-star and 5-star projects perform the way they do.

Finally, we'll compare your organization to others building similar systems—using historical data to capture reality-based expectations, and to show how your team truly measures up.

Software Productivity Baseline and Benchmarking Process

1

Data Collection

We'll work with a study coordinator to identify a representative group of projects, schedule meetings with representatives of each project to collect data, and proceed to analyze the technical and political environments. Then, we'll consolidate the data and build a profile—which we’ll present back to the project team for validation.

2

Productivity Baseline

We'll use our business analytics to construct a baseline for schedule, effort, staffing, productivity, and reliability measures—representing the current, average capability of your organization. We’ll identify the best and worst performers, make recommendations for process improvements, and help you build a business case for change.

3

Competitive Benchmark

We'll use our historical database of over 10,000 projects to create a benchmark that aligns with your organization’s competitors, using criteria such as industry, timeframe, development languages, development platforms, and development methodologies. Then, we’ll conduct a detailed comparison of your project performance and the competitive benchmark—highlighting your competitive strengths and weaknesses.

Productivity Baseline and Benchmarking Benefits

Build a business case for investments

Justify new investments by building a business case for change, or prove the ROI of past investments by comparing newer project performance to a previous baseline.

Smoke out crazy expectations

The biggest cause of project failure is unrealistic expectations. Use baseline data to show when expectations are falling outside the range of reality.

Leverage your data and negotiate from a position of strength

Use historical data to make decisions based on real past performance—eliminating schedule and cost overruns, and putting yourself in a position to negotiate win-win project outcomes with business stakeholders.

Know where you fit in the competitive landscape

Reject unfair and baseless opinions about your productivity and competitive standing. Let your data speak for itself.

Return on Investment

Learn More About QSM Consulting

We offer a variety of industrial-strength solutions to meet all needs and budget requirements, including complete solutions, “lite” versions, and incremental build-outs.

We typically recommend a staged implementation, as it enables a client to realize significant value while getting to know our process. We also suggest working with us on a single project, to start. You’ll get a good feel for QSM consulting, its benefits, and its suitability for your organization.

Please contact our solution design consultants at 800 424-6755 to discuss your individual needs and constraints. We’ll draft a statement of work, and then work with your procurement team to get a master service agreement in place. Once a purchase order has been issued, we’ll start to execute the project.