Better Software Magazine Articles

Building Productivity Through Measurement

Collecting and analyzing some simple measures on your application development project will provide a set of building blocks that can be used to manage your projects. This data will improve your success rate and reduce project development risk. Here are some simple measures that can improve your development efforts.

Randy Numbers
Case Study: Selling the CMM

Envision a slow day, a slow meeting, and someone says in a nonchalant manner something like, "Raise your hand if you want to do a CMM." Only two hands go up—but it makes a difference whose hands. From this casual setting develops an all-out effort involving hundreds of people in training, implementing, and integrating the CMM into the development culture. Here is the story of how one large financial services company mobilized for its CMM initiative.

J. James Jacobsen
Immunizing Against Predictable Project Failure

To be truly successful, a project needs more than a list of requirements and good intentions. Here's a way to use project charters to define the big-picture relationship and expectations between Developers and Management.

I II
Modeling Organizational Change

When you approach a process problem in the way your workgroup functions, you're implementing an organizational change. Organizations are systems of complex interrelationships. Explicit models can help you make strategic changes.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
Building a Project-Oriented Culture

What does it take to support excellence in your software organization? Taking advantage of basic project frameworks and status reporting systems can empower you to effect organizational change from any level. Here's how to make it happen.

Michael K. Levine's picture Michael K. Levine
Measuring Process Improvement

Tracking your project goals lets you know how well your improvement program is going, provides visibility early to detect problems, and gives you data to make your future plans more effective. Here's how to measure improvement based on your project's goals and problems.

Mary Sakry
Outsourcing: What to Consider When Supplementing Your Test and QA Capabilities

Companies outsource for a variety of reasons, with a variety of expectations. This article describes ways outsourcing can be successful, and reasons outsourcing may fail. This is an in-depth article that sets the stage and discusses numerous scenarios.

Jim Bampos
At Your Service

A light and effective process with a service-oriented philosophy is key to meeting your organization's needs. Here are eight simple steps for creating a software engineering team that will turn customers into fans.

Robert Sabourin's picture Robert Sabourin
Meaningful Metrics

Your numbers are solid and your graphs are works of art. Now boost your metrics' value through the roof with some simple annotations that will put all that data in context.

Anna S. W. Allison
Matching ISO 9000 Registration to Your Organization

The chances of getting use from your ISO 9000 certification are greatly enhanced by a registration effort that reflects the real goals and operating principles of your organization. Here are some lessons on how to tailor your effort.

Mark Johnson

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