Quantifying Software: Global and Industry Perspectives

Software is one of the most important products in human history and is widely used by all industries and all countries. It is also one of the most expensive and labor-intensive products in human history. Software also has very poor quality that has caused many major disasters and wasted many millions of dollars. Software is also the target of frequent and increasingly serious cyber-attacks.

Among the reasons for these software problems is a chronic lack of reliable quantified data. This reference provides quantified data from many countries and many industries based on about 26,000 projects developed using a variety of methodologies and team experience levels. The data has been gathered between 1970 and 2017, so interesting historical trends are available.

Since current average software productivity and quality results are suboptimal, this book focuses on "best in class" results and shows not only quantified quality and productivity data from best-in-class organizations, but also the technology stacks used to achieve best-in-class results. The overall goal of this book is to encourage the adoption of best-in-class software metrics and best-in-class technology stacks. It does so by providing current data on average software schedules, effort, costs, and quality for several industries and countries.

Because productivity and quality vary by technology and size, the book presents quantitative results for applications between 100 function points and 100,000 function points. It shows quality results using defect potential and DRE metrics because the number one cost driver for software is finding and fixing bugs. The book presents data on cost of quality for software projects and discusses technical debt, but that metric is not standardized. Finally, the book includes some data on three years of software maintenance and enhancements as well as some data on total cost of ownership.

軟體是人類歷史上最重要的產品之一，被各行各業和各國廣泛使用。它也是人類歷史上最昂貴和勞動密集的產品之一。軟體的品質非常差，造成了許多重大災難，浪費了許多百萬美元。軟體也是頻繁且日益嚴重的網絡攻擊目標。

這些軟體問題的原因之一是可靠的定量數據嚴重不足。本參考資料提供了來自許多國家和許多行業的定量數據，這些數據基於約26,000個項目的開發，使用了各種方法論和團隊經驗水平。這些數據收集自1970年至2017年，因此可以觀察到有趣的歷史趨勢。

由於目前平均軟體生產力和品質結果不佳，本書專注於「最佳實踐」的結果，並展示了最佳實踐組織的定量品質和生產力數據，以及實現最佳實踐結果所使用的技術堆棧。本書的整體目標是鼓勵採用最佳實踐的軟體指標和最佳實踐的技術堆棧。為此，它提供了幾個行業和國家的平均軟體進度、工作量、成本和品質的最新數據。

由於生產力和品質因技術和規模而異，本書提供了100個功能點到100,000個功能點之間應用的定量結果。它使用缺陷潛力和DRE指標來展示品質結果，因為軟體的第一大成本驅動因素是尋找和修復錯誤。本書提供了軟體項目的品質成本數據，並討論了技術債務，但該指標並未標準化。最後，本書還包括了三年軟體維護和增強的一些數據，以及一些關於總擁有成本的數據。

Capers Jones is currently vice president and chief technology officer of Namcook Analytics LLC (www.Namcook.com). Namcook Analytics LLC designs leading edge risk, cost, and quality estimation and measurement tools. Software Risk Master (SRM) is the company's advanced estimation tool with a patent-pending early sizing feature that allows sizing before requirements via pattern matching. Namcook Analytics also collects software benchmark data and engages in longer range software process improvement, quality, and risk assessment studies. These Namcook studies are global and involve major corporations and some government agencies in many countries in Europe, Asia, and South America.

Capers Jones目前擔任Namcook Analytics LLC（www.Namcook.com）的副總裁兼首席技術官。Namcook Analytics LLC設計領先的風險、成本和品質估算和測量工具。Software Risk Master（SRM）是該公司的先進估算工具，具有一項正在申請專利的早期尺寸化功能，可以通過模式匹配在需求之前進行尺寸化。Namcook Analytics還收集軟件基準數據，並進行長期的軟件流程改進、品質和風險評估研究。這些Namcook研究是全球性的，涉及歐洲、亞洲和南美洲的許多大型企業和一些政府機構。