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SPOTLIGHT
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ARTICLE
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IT Measures that
Matter - With the right focus, an
IT Measurement Program can provide critical information
specific to your organization.
CIOs and senior IT leadership teams often find themselves
drowning in a sea of data, yet they seldom have the
information they need to effectively optimize their
organizations. This question was asked at a recent Six Sigma
in IT conference: "What should we be measuring for our IT
organization?" It typifies the data-saturated information
shortage in many IT organizations.
Read this article by
Rod Cleary that appeared in the May 5th issue of
InformationWeek.
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Contact Us |
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1770 E. Lancaster Ave
Suite 15
Paoli, PA 19301
Tel. 610-644-2856
Fax 866-293-0120
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NOW
AVAILABLE
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"THE BUSINESS VALUE OF
IT: Managing Risks, Optimizing Performance, and
Measuring Results," by Michael D. S. Harris,
Principal of ITDC, David Herron, Founder of DCG, and Stasia
Iwanicki, Managing Consultant is available now for sale
at amazon.com.
"The value
of people assets is the capacity for creativity, analysis,
perception, learning, judgment, leadership, coordination,
empathy and trust. Such capacity is in teams and
individuals within the organization, due to knowledge,
experience and skills." (Chapter 15: How Should IT
Manage Its People?)
Order your copy now at CRC Press Online. Enter Code JAF05 for an
additional 15% Discount.
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AGILE PERFORMANCE
MEASUREMENT ... should you be better?
Many software development shops
are moving to Agile as a development method with the
hopes of improving performance. Some shops are so
inherently unorganized that any change will improve
performance and therefore formal measurement before
and after does not make sense. Larger organizations see
potential benefits but the corporate environment is such
that a pilot with significant results is required to
initiate change enterprisewide. Whichever starting point
you begin from the good news is that there is the
potential to become better.
DCG
project productivity analysis on traditional versus
agile projects, limited to enhancement projects of small
size, was presented last year at several conferences.
The table below shows that across the range of
development platforms delivery throughput of
functionality improves when using Agile methods.
Average Hours per function point
(Hrs/FP) of Enhancement Projects (not maintenance)
across different platforms for Small Projects (from DCG
industry database)
Hours per function point is a metric that describes
how many Lifecycle development hours it took to
implement a single function point. A small function
point project, in this instance, is less than 200
function points. However, the amount of
YOUR ACTUAL measured improvement will be unknown without
first performing some sort of Productivity Baseline and
computing a starting point metric for productivity. A
typical productivity baseline evaluates a statistically
significant sample (10 to 25%) of your projects
sufficient to produce a range of productivity values
that have meaning. This gives you a picture of past
performance that establishes a baseline for comparing
future project performance. But is this
baseline worth doing? It depends on your organization
and the value it places on this information. It is a
question only your company can answer. DCG
experience has show that when we help organizations
perform these productivity baselines, subsequent
internal dialog and deliberations are broader and more
in-depth. Anecdotal information is used along the
statistically underpinned data to make informed choices.
Change that is driven by data seems to start quicker and
last longer thus benefiting everyone
involved. For more information,
contact Tony TImbol at
904-287-0294 |
Upcoming
DCG Training
Cut-off date for registration is July
15th
Online Function Point Analysis
Introduction Class
 July 22 - 25, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm EST
each day
This course
provides attendees the opportunity to learn Function
Point counting techniques and to apply them through
exercises and case studies. This is followed by a
counting clinic using one of the organization's
applications to help participants correctly apply the
rules.
Contact
Fiona Thompson for more information at
610-644-2856 Ext 21
New Class
Offering in  Washington DC area in partnership
with
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UPCOMING WEBINARS .....
 How to Leverage your
IT Intellectual Capital for Growth and Profits
The IC Rating™ system is a
practical, ready-to-use,
standardized assessment of your Information
Technology intellectual capital portfolio. The focus of
a rating is usually on a single strategic business unit
and provides a complete picture of your intellectual
capital from three major perspectives:
---Efficiency
- where you are today
---Renewal - the state of your
innovation processes
---Risk - where you could be
losing ground
Read more on which
business leaders require this critical information
...
A Cost Effective Approach to Enterprise
Wide Software Process
Improvement
Tues July 29th, 11:30 -
12:30 pm EST Register NOW
Corporate acquisitions and organic growth have
resulted in the proliferation of organizations that are
geographically, operationally and culturally diverse.
This webinar by Tom Cagley discusses
how to blend an enterprise wide approach to global
process improvement with an agile approach to local
software process improvement in such a way that large
multinational organizations can derive benefits.
This webinar presentation by
Sheila Dennis will
discuss advanced practices of the Function Point metric
used by oganizations worldwide to accurately size
systems in an effort to meet customer demand on time and
within budget. Register
NOW
For questions regarding upcoming Webinars,
contact Fiona Thompson 610-644-2856 Ext
21. |
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!! WEBINAR WINNER
!!
Last
month we offered a prize drawing of one copy of the
recently published book,"The
Business Value of IT, Managing Risks, Optimizing
Performance, and Measuring Results," to one
lucky participant of our webinar on Measuring the Value
of IT (see Spotlight Article). We are happy to
announce that the winner was Barbara
Millican of The Nielsen Company. We will be
in contact with you for delivery details.
Congratulations
Barbara!
For your copy of this
book, see the side bar for purchasing
details. |
Join DCG at
the Quest Conference in Toronto,
Sept 22 - 26,
2008
DCG's Tom Cagley
will be speaking on "When Good Numbers Go Bad."
This presentation will highlight, through a series of
vignettes, the start realities of how measures can go
wrong combined with suggestions on how to address those
unfortunate realities.
For more information on the
Quest Conference, click
here. | |
David Consulting Group
Measure. Improve.
Deliver | | |
