Application developers are relying on subjective
estimates to measure the success of an IT project rather than hard
metrics, according to a study conducted by Forrester Consulting for
Borland Software.
The study, which was based in interviews with 20 development
managers and executives in charge of application development at
companies worth over £500m found that developers were reluctant to
improve their application development metrics.
Those companies that attempted to put metrics on software
development often selected the wrong metrics and used inefficient
methods for collection, according to the Forrester study.
Forrester Research has previously urged businesses to use a
balanced scorecard to measure the performance of application
development.
Marc Brown, vice-president of product marketing at Borland,
said, "This study underscores that application development is the
weakest link in the chain. Software delivery continues to be a
'black box', which means IT is lacking the information it needs to
improve its performance, understand its delivery capacity and
respond to changing business demands."
"Without metrics about business value, application development
organisations are unable to communicate with their customers about
their contributions to the bottom line or even prioritise the work
in a way that makes real business sense."
Over the next 18 months, Borland is planning to introduce
products and services designed to provide business intelligence for
software developers. The products will aim to optimise development
processes by using real-time metrics to help IT managers
responsible for software development to understand key performance
indicators - risk, cost, impact and value.