CHC-3 Consulting, Inc. Software Process Improvement Chuck Connell

CHC-3 Consulting, Inc.Software Process Improvement

Chuck Connell

www.chc-3.com

Healing Sick Software

Or, What to Do When Your Software Project Is In Trouble…

1/18/00 Copyright 2000 CHC-3 Consulting, Inc. (www.chc-3.com)

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Long-term Improvements

Much attention lately to strategic improvements in software processCMM (from Carnegie Mellon) and ISO 9001 are prime examplesCan have a big payoff, over many projectsCan take a long time (18+ months common)


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This Is Great, But…

Won’t help when a particular software project is in trouble now

Can’t wait a year to solve this week’s crisis

(This caveat is stated explicitly in the CMM publications.)


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For Short-term Crisis We Need…

A method to analyze and fix a particular project

Must be fast (2-10 days)

Should not interfere with long-term improvements


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Our Method…

Look at the qualities a software project must have to stay healthy

Identify effort and benefit of each area

Use this analysis to develop numerical “snapshot” of project health

Take snapshot of troubled project to guide short-term actions


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A. Shared End-Goals

What are the long-term plans for this project? What will it do? What will it look like?Should have fairly specific detailShould include all major playersIf projects lacks this, all other work may be a wasteSome projects only have one constituent (the visionary) but this is rare


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B. Modest, Stable Goals for Next Version

A short list of specific features for next milestoneShould use known methodsShould be the same, more or less, every morningOther features broken into equally manageable sets (not forgotten)Common failing of software projects, especially in organizations with lots of $$Usually requires good (strong) management


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C. Good Internal Design

All routines and code should be clean, simple, maintainable, modifiable, and scalableMake it right, don’t just make it workRequires a top-notch, senior engineerFor large projects, can be difficult to fixBut, fix made easier by cleaning up #A and #B


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D. Realistic Schedule for Next Version

Realistic means realistic – include specification, design, coding, testing, debugging, external testing, documentation, training, sick time, personnel changes, etc.

Assumes good quality

Also requires strong management


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E. Source Control & Automatic Builds

A.k.a. configuration management

Should be able easily to retrieve and build any previous version

Not a technical problem – solvable with existing tools and procedures


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F. Efficient Process to Track and Fix Bugs

Bug reporting should be simple and understood by everyone involved

No need for bugs to be lost or fixed twice

Not a technical problem – solvable with existing tools and procedures


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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

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LT P lan ST P lan Design Schedule Builds Bugs

Impact


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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

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LT P lan ST P lan Design Schedule Builds Bugs

Effort to Improve


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Taking a Project’s Temperature

Numerical “snapshot” of a software project’s health

Subjective -- but helpful in focusing repair efforts

Each item given a value of 1 to 5 (5 is best) with factors at front of list weighted more heavily

Overall score is 0 to 100


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Taking a TemperatureExample

Formula is….

((A-1)*6 + (B-1)*5 + (C-1)*4 + (D-1)*3 + (E-1)*2 + (F-1)) * (100/84)

Not as complex as it looks

Equation just weights initial items more heavily and stretches score from 0 to 100


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Example #1(from audience)

A (lt plan), B (st plan)

C (design), D (schedule)

E (builds), F (bugs)

((A-1)*6 + (B-1)*5 + (C-1)*4 + (D-1)*3 + (E-1)*2 + (F-1)) * (100/84)….

Key point -- results of making improvements…


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Example #2(from audience)

A (lt plan), B (st plan)

C (design), D (schedule)

E (builds), F (bugs)

((A-1)*6 + (B-1)*5 + (C-1)*4 + (D-1)*3 + (E-1)*2 + (F-1)) * (100/84)….

Key point -- results of making improvements…


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What To Do

As shown in the examples, use the snapshot to guide you to trouble spots. Most likely….

Fix #E (source/builds) and #F (bug tracking) – big gain for little work. Then,

Fix #A (lt plan), #B (st plan), and #D (schedule) – with help from strong management. Then,

Fix #C (design), over several releases


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What To Do

Use this model of a healthy project to guide your next project (so it does not get into trouble)

Continue long-term, strategic improvements to your organization’s software processes (CMM, ISO)

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CHC-3 Consulting, Inc. Software Process Improvement Chuck Connell