[April 12, 2012]

QSM Associates and COHAA to Benchmark Columbus, Ohio's Agile Software Development against Industry

A first-of-its-kind study contrasting the Agile (News - Alert) development practices of one development community against world-wide results is under way in Columbus, Ohio. The study, being conducted by software productivity researchers QSM Associates in tandem with the Central Ohio Agile Association (COHAA), will answer several questions that challenge software development organizations.

Among the nagging questions being addressed are:

• if it is true -as suggested by Agile visionary Kent Beck-- that Agile projects deliver more functionality with fewer defects, why is this the case?
• how do Agile projects compare to waterfall or plan-based projects?
• are Agile teams more productive than offshore teams?

The ground-breaking industry study will answer these and many other questions of Agile development practices in Columbus, and then compare-and-contrast the Columbus results to the world at large. Initial results will be revealed at The Path to Agility conference on May 24 in Columbus.

"In the world of corporate software development, a lot of questions surround the practice of Agile programming," said Bart Murphy, Treasurer of COHAA."And while there actually seem to be two answers to every question, nobody has compared the effectiveness and other artifacts of a local development community against the software world at large. Until now. The QSM Associates expertise will arm the Columbus Agile community with valuable information on addressing development projects, and budgets."

Early results suggest that Columbus, Ohio is a vibrant communiy for Agile.

"Just as with the political primary season, the early results show some interesting facts and trends," said Michael Mah, managing director of QSM Associates. "But unlike politics, there are no losers in this. The information in this survey, while confidential to each participating company, provides important insight into development practices in Columbus, and compares the results against the thousands of cases we have analyzed worldwide.

"Why Columbus? There is a strong and cohesive Agile community there, and they were the first to decide that they wanted to see how good they are," said Mah.

The study allows participants to objectively benchmark the organization's performance to create an initial productivity baseline. This enables companies to identify strategic directions and goals, and to focus their improvement efforts with optimal efficiency.

As an incentive to participate, companies receive a temporary use license of SLIM, a data capture template that captures key metrics for Agile projects, including stories, story points, time, effort, defects, velocity, and backlog. Participants will receive a private, confidential analysis of their patterns along with the study results for the group.

QSM Associates has more than 30 years experience in helping Fortune 500 companies, and has access to the largest benchmarking database, comprising more than 10,000 projects, and believed to be the world's largest and most complete benchmarking database. The company, an affiliate of QSM, Inc., uses state-of-the-art measurement and estimation tools that are part of the QSM SLIM software lifecycle management suite.

About COHAA

The Central Ohio Agile Association (COHAA) is a non-profit group of IT and Business professionals dedicated to finding a better way to deliver software. COHAA promotes the use of Agile practices and principles in project management, software development, quality assurance, and business analysis with an emphasis on solution delivery.

COHAA supports and promotes the adoption of Agile practices in software development and delivery, and acts as a resource for individuals and organizations that use, or are interested in using Agile frameworks and practices such as XP, SCRUM, TDD, FDD, Lean, & KANBAN.

About QSM Associates

QSM Associates, Inc. helps organizations measure, plan, estimate and control software projects. It offers the SLIM (Software Lifecycle Management) Suite of tools, so managers can benchmark and forecast Agile, waterfall, in-house, offshore/multi-shore or ERP/package implementation projects. SLIM contains statistics from a worldwide database of more than 10,000 completed projects, enabling productivity benchmarking on the desktop. Using SLIM to dynamically run "virtual project simulations," companies can model and forecast waterfall and Agile releases to deliver on time, within budget with >90% estimation accuracy. SLIM can also derive ROI achieved by Agile methods and other process improvements. QSM Associates offers consulting, training, and coaching to help accelerate this capability. Information is available at www.QSMA.com.

Michael Mah, Managing Partner is also the Benchmark Practice Director at the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-area IT think-tank. Along with Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce.com (News - Alert), QSMA is a Rally Software Strategic Partner.

QSM and SLIM are registered trademarks of Quantitative Software Management, which is headquartered in McLean, VA with partner offices and affiliates throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.

[ Back To Contact Center Solutions Homepage's Homepage ]