Five Core Metrics: The Intelligence Behind Successful Software Management

Part III: Control at the Project Level

The next seven chapters are devoted to the activities pertinent to planning and controlling a single project. There is much more to a software project of some consequence than coding. At the outset, for instance, several experienced people ought to think hard about whether the concept is feasible, both technically and organizationally. That is Phase One, Feasibility or Inception.

In Phase Two, Functional Design or Elaboration, the team pulls together enough information about the proposed software product to place a size estimate on the functionality to be produced. Size is a crucial metric underlying the estimate of schedule time and effort. Moreover, the time and effort metrics affect each other, as we ...