This Trusted Advisor report provides guidance as to how a company can better manage and improve its software productivity. In doing so, we examine productivity primarily through a project management perspective. That said, we consider the strategic or top-down perspective and the tactical or bottom-up perspective separately. You can download the report here: http://www.softwarevalue.com/insights/publications/ta-archives/how-to-manage-a-projects-productivity/ To access more Trusted Advisor articles, visit: http://www.softwarevalue.com/insights/publications/#trustedadvisor

1. How can I manage a project’s productivity or should I even try?
January 2014
Scope of this Report
In this report, we look at productivity primarily through a project management perspective. That said,
we consider the strategic or top-down perspective and the tactical or bottom-up perspective separately.
How can I manage a project’s productivity? While the question may invoke a complex answer, the
rationale for asking the question is quite simple: increased productivity reduces costs. Of course, this
assumes that all other things stay the same and the report considers the interactions between cost,
quality and time to market. It has been estimated that increasing global software productivity by even
small percentages would translate into billions of dollars in savings and/or increased profitability. It is
no small matter that organizations are constantly looking to improve their software delivery
performance.
Should I even try? While on the surface this question may seem rhetorical and the response superficial,
the real answer lies in the choice of goals for the project – we assume in this report that productivity is a
high priority or else the question is moot – and the degree to which managing for high productivity can
be achieved without compromising secondary objectives, the most difficult of which might be customer
satisfaction.
What is project productivity?
A project is a temporary endeavor with the objective of manufacturing (producing, or developing) a
product or delivering a service adhering to the specifications of the customer (including functionality,
quality, reliability, price and schedule) and conforming to international / national / customer / internal
standards for performance, and reliability. A software development project has the objective of
developing a software product or maintaining an existing software product.
Project management is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling
resources to meet customer expectations. The primary objective of project management is to achieve all
of the project expectations -- deliverables on time, within budget, with acceptable quality -- while
honoring any preconceived constraints. The secondary challenge is to optimize project performance (i.e.
productivity).
Productivity is usually expressed as a ratio of output units produced per unit of input effort (e.g. function
points/staff hour; function points/full time equivalent (FTE); lines of code/person-months). As with most
metrics, this is a simple relationship but the defining of the inputs and outputs is critical to comparisons
of productivity data.
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2. From a project management and process perspective, productivity is the result, or the output, of the
delivery process and therefore it is not “manageable”, in and of itself. What can be managed are the
inputs and constraints to the delivery process which in turn affects productivity.
Productivity and Other Project Goals
Productivity is just one of several potential goals for project management and probably the best answer
to the “Should I even try?” part of the question is in being clear about how these potentially competing
goals should be prioritized for any given project.
Three of the other potential goals are the so-called “iron triangle” of software development: cost,
quality and time-to-market. It is superficially easy to see that higher productivity should generally
improve the cost of the project and sometimes the time-to-market. However, time to market can often
be improved by having people waiting around so they can pick up a task on the critical path without
delay. Their wait time optimizes time-to-market but productivity suffers.
Quality is most often though to be risked by higher productivity but this is not a straightforward
relationship either. For example, often productivity and quality can be improved together. “Getting it
right first time” results in fewer defects and less rework which may result in better productivity. Also,
one of the great aids to productivity, process automation, often comes hand-in-hand with better quality
as human error opportunities are removed from the process.
Finally, agile has taught us that customer satisfaction can (and should in most projects) be a powerful
driving of successful software projects. It can be debated whether aalowing and planning for changing
requirements yields higher or lower productivity so its probably best to say that either outcome is
possible if customer satisfaction is the main goal.
The Strategic (or top-down) Approach to Project Productivity
Strategically, when management thinks of (improving?) productivity, it is typically in practical terms such
as the following alternatives.
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Increase the volume of work successfully with current staff
Accomplish the same volume of work with a fewer staff
Develop products of greater complexity or market value with the current staff
Avoid hiring additional staff to increase workload
Rationalize higher levels of capital-to-staff investment
Streamline or downsize software production operations
Benchmarking for Best Performance
“Benchmarking is the search for industry best practices that lead to superior performance.” (Robert C.
Camp)
In addition to the above recommendations, an industry recognized best practice to understand, address
and improve an organization’s development performance is the use of benchmarking. Complexity and
capability variables can be obtained by creating a baseline of performance where by quantitative and
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3. qualitative data is collected, analyzed and built into the benchmarking model. By examining recently
completed projects over a period of 6 to 12 months, the proper data points of complexity and
development team performance can be collected and analyzed. Deep analysis is performed to
determine whether there are relationships between elements of the attribute data and the quantitative
data. The linkages provide the quantitative basis for improvement recommendations and the basis to
trace anecdotal stories (actual incidents and organizational studies) to the recommendations.
The knowledge gained from this experience will allow for identification of process strengths and
weaknesses associated with performance levels. This data is included in the findings and serve as the
basis for recommendations. Discovery of interdependent process weaknesses that influence the
development life cycle enables the organization to actively address the weaknesses in order to
strengthen the foundation of the delivery process framework and improve productivity. Creating an
internal baseline of performance is often best performed by a consultant who has experience with
selecting and analyzing the proper variables appropriate for your industry and technical environment.
The Tactical (or bottom-up) Approach to Project Productivity
The need to get the software out the door and into the hands of the customer is a very real demand of
the business. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to strive for i self-directing, high performing
teams. To facilitate the team’s delivery process, the focus of project management should be to
minimize the burden on the people delivering value to the project and the customer. Put another way,
the best productivity is achieved with mnimal project management if, and only if, the project team is
strong enough and motivated enough to execute efficiently. Some are. Many are not.
An example is to focus on the flow that happens through the development process into delivery. Project
management needs to focus on speed (velocity), throughput and time to market to make sure that the
flow is as smooth as possible. This is accomplished by managing the precursors to -- and the drivers of -the development effort. By managing the influences to the development team environment, you can
then influence the outcome, or productivity.
Precursors and drivers can fall into the following categories.
A. People
The team should reflect the right mix of developers and quality control staff, with the
appropriate knowledge and skill level to execute the project. In general terms, smaller teams
have been found to be more productive than larger ones. Other characteristics of high
performing teams are the following.
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Small, well-organized project teams; usually 3-7 experienced developers,
comfortable working with each other
Experienced software development staff (already familiar with application system
domain, or similar system development projects)
Software developers and managers who collect and evaluate their own software
production data and are rewarded or acknowledged for producing high data value
software
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4. 
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A variety of teamwork structures and the patterns of shifts between them during
task performance
High-output or responsive personnel receive rewards and recognition
B. Requirements Management
It is a proven fact that high productivity projects are directly related to requirements stability.
However, most organizations experience some type of scope change during the project.
Organizations that are most successful are those with the ability to manage scope changes or
product backlog with consistency, flexibility and little disruption to the delivery flow. High
maturity organizations have standard processes in place prior to project initiation, and teams
are not only familiar with but are key players in the requirements stabilization process.
Other characteristics of requirements that promote higher productivity are ease of alteration for
existing functionality, reusability of existing functionality, minimal constraints for validation of
data processing, and standardized security requirements.
C. Education
The appropriate training, training resources, and referential materials are readily available to
the team. This includes process training as well as technical training, process artifacts as well as
technical manuals. Use of current technologies (e.g. knowledge repositories; online training
modules) to deliver training or reference artifacts can be a productivity booster.
D. Process
Regardless of the life cycle development method you are using, processes can be streamlined to
facilitate the delivery flow. Are meetings kept to a minimum? Are there short feedback loops?
Is the use of current technologies used to increase throughput time? All of these can contribute
toward team efficiencies.
It has been stated that, “Mastering software project management is about gaining control
through the use of reliable and meaningful information”. All life cycle methodologies (even
Agile) are highly measurable. Are you getting reliable and meaningful information from your
process measurement? If so, then you are in a good position to affect your productivity by
addressing process improvement opportunities.
Here are some examples that typically have a direct correlation to productivity.
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Identify possible product defects earlier in development through process inspections
Identify resource utilization patterns to discover production bottlenecks and
underutilized resource
Track and reduce error densities in delivered products
Decrease the amount of time and effort needed to rectify software errors
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5. If your measurement results are not in line with your expectations, then you might consider a
process assessment, an independent process review, or a measurement road map “check up” to
identify areas for improvement.
E. Tools and Technology
In today’s environments, current tools and technology are essential to the development team. A
strong, reliable infrastructure should be in place to support the team. Compatibility issues, risks
and constraints should be kept to a minimum to maintain a steady flow of development activity.
Studies have suggested that the following are necessary enablers for the highest performing
teams.
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Fast turnaround development activities (capacity)
High-bandwidth processing throughput
Abundant computing resources
Accessible support specialists
Contemporary software engineering tools and techniques
o Design and code development aids
o Rapid prototyping tools
o Application generators
o Domain-specific (reusable) software components
Process support applications for coordinating projects (configuration management
systems, software testing tools, documentation management systems)
Programming languages with constructs closely matched to application domain
concepts (e.g., object-oriented languages)
F. Environment
This driver represents the business and work environment of the development team. Some of
the environmental factors that could affect productivity are:
 The relationship of the development team to the business customer
 The ability to communicate with the business team
 The location of the team(s)
 The flexibility of the work location
 The immediate ambience of the work area (furnishings, desk availability, noise level of
the surrounding areas, etc)
Conclusion
In summary, the following key points will help you to manage a projects productivity:.
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While productivity is not managed independently, precursors to the project can be managed
to affect productivity.
Address precursors and key drivers of the development environment to facilitate the delivery
process.
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6. 
Benchmark your organization to discover key drivers, pockets of positive influence, hidden
weaknesses; and to implement areas of improvement.
As to whether you should try, at the individual project level, you must be clear that productivity is
important enough to the project outcomes to be worth fighting for. At the macro level, for an
organization, productivity improvement should always be a goal, however gradual, after any higher
priorities have been achieved.
Sources
1. “Benchmark GPS – Lowering Your Cost of Performance”. David Consulting Group. 2010.
2. ”Understanding Software Productivity”, Walt Scacchi. Advances in Software Engineering and
Knowledge Engineering, D. Hurley (ed.), Volume 4, pp. 37-70, (1995).
3. “Project Management: 6 Best Practices for Ensuring Software Implementation Success”, Rob
Prinzo. http://www.cio.com/article/683570/; 2011.
4. “Mastering Software Project Management, A Primer”, Tom Cagley. July 2010.
5. “Why is it so difficult for organizations to get an accurate estimate?”, David Herron and Sheila P.
Dennis, 2006.
©2014 David Consulting Group
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