Reifer Consultants LLC’s recent white paper, Software Benchmarks and Benchmarking, discusses software benchmarking process and provides information on industry
software benchmarking services and products that are available. Donald J. Reifer is recognized as one of the leading figures in the fields of software engineering and management with more 40+ years of progressive management experience in both industry and government.
Software development processes have evolved over the past decades as people learn what works and what doesn't work. Although we don't have centuries of experience like other fields such as building houses, we have learned a great deal. There has been some pushback against the long formal software development processes (waterfall) that have been replaced with Agile software development. But some formal processes are still needed to match the agility. Included in these processes is the important concept of software benchmarking.
What is software benchmarking?
Software benchmarking is the collection of and comparison of data from multiple sources. This process doesn't necessarily have to do with software, and recognizing that helps you build a formal plan for software benchmarking. On the other hand, you might be benchmarking the software development process itself to determine if teams are working as efficiently as possible.
Consider the situation of comparing insurance rates. You might make a few phone calls, visit a few websites, and gather up the data but before you can compare the data, you need to normalize it to make sure you're not comparing apples to oranges. Are you comparing monthly rates to bi-annual rates? Are the rates for the same services? Similarly, with benchmarking software development processes, you have to make sure your data is normalized. To get the data normalized, you need to use a formal process, just as you do with software quality in general. In a sense, designing a software benchmark is similar to architecting software itself.
Mr. Reifer explains the software benchmarking process as:
Benchmarking is a form of engineering and architecture in its own right. If you want to learn more, you can; visit Reifer Consulting, download the Software Benchmarks and Benchmarking white paper, or visit Application Measurement & Benchmarking.
About Reifer Consultants LLC: Reifer Consultants LLC is a small business that specializes in software productivity benchmarking. In addition to the referenced semi-annual productivity benchmarking report that we publish, we offer the benchmarking products and services listed below. To inquire about these and other services, please get in touch with us using the contact information provided below.
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