Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules

The Bottom Line on Measurement

Measurement programs naturally have some of the best data available to support their efficacy. Metrics guru Capers Jones reports that organizations that have established full software-measurement programs have often improved quality by about 40 percent per year and productivity by about 15 percent per year for 4 to 5 years consecutively (Jones 1991, 1994). He points out that only a handful of U.S. organizations currently have accurate measures of software defect rates and defect removal and that those organizations tend to dominate their industries (Jones 1991). The cost for this level of improvement is typically from 4 to 5 percent of the total software budget.