This post is a follow-up to our previous case study on incorporating unit testing into an existing team’s development environment. The case study is based on a real solution that has already started reaping rewards for our client, and is gaining momentum. We’re now looking at making it easier for the development team to maintain this test suite, and proposing some extensions – including a form of tagging.
New theme for Tyner Blain!
We’ve upgraded our theme! The new look should provide much better support for users with larger monitors, while still supporting folks reading at 800×600 resolution. We’ve added a calendar widget to make it easy to find the posts for a given date. We have easier navigation from page to page, […]
Using ROI For Requirements Is A Risky Business
We’ve talked repeatedly about using ROI to drive prioritization of requirements based upon value. ROI can be used as the basis for prioritization for all decision making.
If we fail to take risk into account, our calculations will certainly be wrong, and we may make a poor decision. When we talk about accounting for risk in this context, we mean that we are accounting for the unlikely, undesired, or unintentional outcomes. We use the term expected value to refer to the risk adjusted approximation of the outcome. In financial circles, this is also called discounting.
The most common mistake people make when calculating ROI is failing to take into account the expected value of the return or the expected value of the cost of a project.
Definition of Expected Value
Understanding the expected value of a possible future event allows us to make mathematically sound decisions. We can decide if we want to make an investment. We can assign a reasonable price for our services. We can prioritize requirements. Expected value is a calculation that should be used when calculating ROI.
Software Testing Series: Top Three Measurements of Quality
The three most important things to understand about the quality of your software are the three things most relevant to your business and your stakeholders (and arguably, your boss).
Top three measurements of software quality
1. How do people perceive our quality?
2. How big of a problem is our quality?
3. How bad is our software, really?
Why Incremental Delivery Is Good
Incremental delivery is a key component of most software projects today – it allows us to deliver the most valuable elements of a system first, which allows our customers to start getting benefit from the system earlier. As additional features are developed, and additional use cases are enabled, they are delivered to the customers, who get incremental value from those features. This can have a significant impact on ROI projections for a project – and can be the difference between getting the deal and losing it.
Definition of ROI – Return on Investment
We talk about ROI all the time – what is it, in layman’s terms? ROI is the acronym for return on investment. Another way to think of it is “How much profit will we make if we invest in this project?” Profit is revenue minus costs. Technically, the question should […]