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Warning!
- Your project may be at risk! |
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The
now famous Standish Report on Software Project Management found that in
the US 31% of all projects will be abandoned before completion and that
52% will cost 189% of their original estimates.
UK
figures make equally stark reading with 22% of projects abandoned and an
incredible 89% running late or over budget. |
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The Standish Group
Chaos Report
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In
compiling the Chaos Report, The
Standish Group discovered that the average cost overrun on software projects is
a staggering 189% of the original cost estimate, and the average time overrun is
an unbelievable 222% of the original time estimate.
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The
average cost of a software development project for a large company is
$2,322,000; for a medium company, it is $1,331,000; and for a small company, it
is $434,000.
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Standish Group Chaos Report |
Inadequate understanding of initial
requirements and an inability to assess the impact of change during development
are frequent causes for schedule and budget overruns.
One of the goals of software process
improvement is to provide a co-operative framework in which users and developers
can work effectively, openly discussing and
agreeing the various dimensions of system functionality, development personnel,
project costs and delivery dates.
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Reliable estimates at the initial
stages of a project and the ability to quickly re-forecast during a project are
essential to an open process, demonstrating the impact of changes
to the different variables and allowing users and developers to discuss collaboratively
the optimum way to meet both their objectives.
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Software Engineering Institute
Capability Maturity Model
Integration |
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In
1984, the United States Department of Defense formed SEI (Software Engineering
Institute) to establish standards of excellence for software engineering and to
accelerate the transition of advanced technology and methods into practice.
After
years of experience with the software process and based on extensive feedback
from both industry and government, SEI has developed the Capability Maturity Model
Integration (CMMI).
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The CMMI presents sets of recommended practices in a number of key process areas that have been shown to enhance software process capability. CMMI defines 5 levels of software process maturity:
- Initial
- Repeatable
- Defined
- Managed
- Optimizing (highest
level)
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SEI
CMMI |
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In order to progress through the CMMI levels,
organisations are required to establish methods and practices that are measurable and allow earlier project successes to be repeated in a controlled and predictable way.
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A
measurable and repeatable estimation method, that allows metric data obtained
from measurement within an organisation to be fed back, is a powerful tool for
enhancing software process maturity. Reliable estimates are an essential
ingredient in ensuring that project objectives for cost, schedule,
functionality, and quality are realistic and can be achieved.
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The
Object Management Group
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The Object Management Group, Inc. (OMG)
is an international organization supported by
over 800 members, including information system vendors, software developers and
users.
Founded in 1989, the OMG promotes
the theory and practice of object-oriented technology
in software development.
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OMG's
objectives are to foster the growth of object technology and influence its
direction by establishing the Object Management Architecture (OMA).
The OMA provides the
conceptual infrastructure upon which all OMG specifications are based. The
primary goals are the reusability, portability, and interoperability of
object-based software in distributed, heterogeneous environments.
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OMG |
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The organization's charter
includes the establishment of industry guidelines and object management
specifications to provide a common framework for application development.
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Conformance to these
specifications will make it possible to develop a heterogeneous
applications environment across all major hardware platforms and operating
systems.
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UML
(Unified Modeling Language)
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The Unified Modeling Language
(UML) is a graphical language for visualizing, specifying, constructing, and
documenting the artifacts of a software-intensive system.
The UML offers a standard way to write a
system's blueprints, including conceptual things such as business processes and
system functions as well as concrete things such as programming language
statements, database schemas, and reusable software components.
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The UML represents a
collection of the best engineering practices that have proven successful
in the modeling of large and complex systems.
The UML is nonproprietary and open to all.
It addresses the needs of user and scientific communities, as established by experience with the underlying
methods on which it is based. Many methodologists, organizations, and tool vendors have
committed to use it.
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OMG
UML Specification |
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OMG’s adoption of the UML
specification reduces the degree of confusion within the industry
surrounding modeling languages. It settles unproductive arguments about
method notations and model interchange mechanisms and allows the industry
to focus on higher leverage, more productive activities. Additionally, it
enables semantic interchange between visual modeling tools.
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Planning and estimating the
development of object-oriented software applications demands an approach that
combines a set of productivity metric data with
classifiers that conform to the fundamental modeling concepts and semantics of
the UML specification.
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XMI
(XML MetaData Interchange)
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XMI is a model driven XML framework for defining, interchanging, manipulating and integrating XML data and objects.
The proposed XMI standard will allow developers to leverage the web to exchange data between tools, applications, and repositories to create secure, distributed applications built in a team development environment.
By establishing an industry standard for storing and sharing object programming information, development teams using various tools from multiple vendors can still collaborate on applications.
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XMI - XML Metadata Interchange
Format -
An open information interchange model that is intended to give developers working with object technology the ability to exchange programming data over the Internet in a standardized way.
XML - Extensible Markup Language -
An extremely simple dialect of SGML designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. The goal of XML is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web.
DTD - Document Type Definition
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Allows different instances of documents of the same type to be automatically processed in a uniform way.
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OMG
XMI Specification |
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The XMI standard specifies a structure for interchanging models that
use XML. The XMI DTD generated for UML is a physical mechanism for interchanging UML
models conforming to the UML metamodel.
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The XMI DTD generated for UML
offers a common platform for integrating development tools and project
management tools through the use of an open information interchange model.
Project management tools can now directly integrate UML models as the basis for
organizing and controlling the development of object-oriented software applications.
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The
State of IT Project Management in the UK |
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CW360.com
has joined forces with Chris Sauer and Christine Cuthbertson of Oxford
University's Templeton College to produce the definitive study on the
state of IT project management in the UK. |
The
study, which received research sponsorship from change management
consultancy the French Thornton Partnership, will help IT and business
managers establish realistic expectations for IT projects and programmes,
improve project management performance and develop the skills of project
managers. |
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The
State of IT Project Management in the UK - the definitive study |
Objectives
- To construct a
comprehensive picture of IT project and programme management in the UK
today
- To develop performance
benchmarks for IT projects and programmes
- To identify key drivers
of project performance
- To identify
characteristics of successful project and programme managers
- To identify best
practices in enterprise-level management of project and programme
managers
- To anticipate emerging
developments in project and programme management
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CW360.com
is publishing the preliminary findings of the research in four short reports
available in a PDF format and can be downloaded free.
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