Tag: Function Point

On April 6^th, CAST held a user group meeting on the topic of function point analysis and software productivity measurement. The meeting gathered more than 20 software measurement professionals from major companies in the banking, IT consulting, telecom, aviation and public sectors for a two-hour working session to discuss the benefits of function point analysis testing.

The event featured presentations including:

1. An IBM case study on how they worked with CAST to integrate and secure an Automated Function Point (AFP) approach with a big player in the aeronautic sector within TMA Systems
2. Functional sizing case study
3. Updates on the new CISQ standards for Automated Function Points
4. The importance of internal and external benchmarking

On May 13^th, a group of IT executives highlighted the importance of these software analysis and measurement in order to maintain software quality standards and to uphold a healthy and efficient relationship with business stakeholders and application service providers.

CAST sponsored the 2015 International Software Measurement & Analysis Conference (ISMA10) held in Charlotte, on April 30^th.  This conference, hosted by the International Function Point User Group (IFPUG), brings software measurement professionals from Europe, North America, and South America to exchange software measurement and function point expertise and to network.  The conference was attended by more than 50 software measurement professional and certified function point counters from across the global.  The full day event featured presentations including:

In this post, we wanted to take a step back and break down exactly what a function point is and how an IT organization can use them to measure application development productivity, improve IT project planning and estimating, and better manage application service providers.

You’d be hard pressed to find any organization that isn't using measurement -- either for marketing, sales, social media, and countless other ways. In fact, a recent report from IDC predicts that by 2017, 80% of the CIO’s time will be focused on analytics, cybersecurity, and creating new revenue streams through digital services.

In this era of big data, analytics has become an invaluable tool for IT organizations to succeed. Not only for ensuring a high quality product, but also keeping your customers safe from malicious hackers and application crashes. Despite the obvious need, some executives struggle with the business case for proper software analytics and opt for skunk-work metrics that are less accurate and more expensive.

There were so many great questions from attendees after the “Aligning Vendor SLAs with Long-Term Value” webinar that I moderated last week that we've compiled them here for you. Whether you participated in the webinar or not, I'm sure you'll find the questions -- and answers -- fascinating. Plus, don’t forget to check out the results from the real-time poll we conducted during the webinar!