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COSMIC-UserStories-French

French language version of Grant Rule’s 2010  paper on Sizing User Stories with COSMIC, translated by Sylvie Trudel, Pyxis Technologies inc. (Canada).

A comparison of the most commonly used Functional Size Measurement methods compiled by P. Grant Rule.

Download FSM Methods Compared – PGR v1i

Download Reducing Risk in Outsourcing

Grant Rule’s presentation to the 2007 Risk Management seminar considers the threats to achieving a successful outcome which arise when software development is outsourced, and some successful strategies for mitigating these risks.

Download Predictable Pricing for Agile

Grant Rule’s presentation to the 2011 International Software Metrics and Estimating conference in London looks at managing software development costs and pricing using Output Based Contracts, and how these can be used effectively to manage agile delivery without comprising the benefits of an agile approach.

(This paper was presented to the ISME conference by Chris Woodward.)

Output Based Contracts_An Agile Approach to Software Contracts

Outsourcing and Trust

Many commentators have suggested that the agile, incremental delivery approach is incompatible with good corporate governance of ICT projects. Indeed, Alistair Maughan, an experienced corporate lawyer who has advised on large public and private ICT contracts including UK HM Revenue & Custom’s controversial 10-year £8.5bn deal with Capgemini, has recently argued < http://ow.ly/5Rr1F > that “Agile… won’t work in the real world” of government ICT projects. One basic argument used is that projects fail due to a “lack of trust between customer and supplier” and hence the “Agile credo of, “Let’s trust each other some more” is undermined from the start.
What do we mean by ‘trust’ in this context?

The Outsourced IT Experience

Corporate customers have learned not to trust outsourced suppliers. Their experience has been that software projects deliver late, over budget, and represent poor value. They are not looking at the reasons for this; they simply trust their own experience when it comes to negotiating new contracts. So new suppliers start at a disadvantage.
Dialogue and case history helps a supplier build a relationship with a potential customer, so that the client’s buying team can feel more confident they will not live to regret the new partnership. Many agile developers feel that the case they make for keeping in tune with the client’s needs and delivering to those needs is powerful enough on its own. But purchasers want to know, first and foremost, how much it will cost and what they will be getting for their money.
The business users value what the software does – aka the business outcome. In an integrated Lean value stream, the business users use the software to enhance the value delivered by their business to their customers. But the business users do not commission the software projects. The procurement and retained IT folk who commission projects want assured value for money – they don’t want their butts kicked by their senior management for overrunning their budgets. Their performance is measured by compliance to standard practices. Outcomes are a secondary consideration. For them, it is all about managing the cost.

Download article OutputBasedContracts_An AgileApproach to Software Contracts

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Sizing User Stories with the COSMIC FSM Method

Lean Enterprise Architecture

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Delivering ROI on Software Process Improvement

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Painting by numbers: Using visible measures for lean management

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Delivering Value from Outsourcing