Software House - Efficiency Audits

Efficiency Audits

Well-established software houses typically have some way of measuring their own efficiency. This is usually done by defining the set of key performance indicators (KPI), such as

• The average number of bugs done by the developer per unit of time or source lines of code
• The number of bugs found by tester per test cycle
• The average number of test cycles until Zero Bug Bounce (ZBB)
• The average time of test cycle
• Estimated time of task comparing to the real time of the task (exactitude of planning)
• Number of corrections to the baseline

A number of organizations are focused on reaching the optimum level of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), where "optimum" does not necessarily mean the highest. There are also other systems such as Carnegie-Mellon University's SEMA, or particular ISO standards. Small software houses will sometimes use less formalized approaches, such as the Joel Test : 12 steps to better code. Each organization works out its own style, which lies somewhere between total technocracy (where all is defined by numbers) and total anarchy (where there are no numbers at all). Whichever way the organization goes, they consider the pyramid describing the cost and risk of introducing change to already-begun development processes: