We care about doing software work well and efficiently

There is too much waste on most software projects.

Most large software projects and digital transformations fail to deliver their expected result and in many cases fail completely.

We think that there is a better way to do software.  We are doing things differently, not for the sake of it but because in decades of software project management we have learned some key lessons and we are embedding these in our products and services.  Our approach can deliver software faster, better and cheaper.

We are doing some things differently. And we are doing those things with great intensity.  Our difference starts with three key principles:

Requirements matter – without clear requirements, success is unlikely.
User focus – is essential
Size matters – functional size is the best known way of sizing software.
ScopeMaster is the world’s first commercial software requirements analyser that helps organisations analyse and refine requirements faster and more thoroughly so that they can deliver software projects more successfully with less rework.

History

Scopemaster was formed in 2018, but its roots started long before that. After many years managing software endeavours, the ScopeMaster team found that functional size and requirements quality are critical to the success of any project.

In 2013, Colin started a journey of trying to make sizing from requirements and requirements analysis faster and easier. At first with a basic online functional sizing tool, then in 2016 the investigations into automated sizing began. The product that we now know as ScopeMaster® Analyser has evolved from just a requirements sizing to tool to something more useful and has become the powerful tool that we have today.  Check out the release notes for  more on the product history.

Our focus remains on helping organisations to deliver maximum value through software, by paying attention to sizing and requirements quality. We are proud of building the world’s first commercial tool to automates requirements analysis that makes a leap change in reducing waste and bringing greater transparency to software work.

If you share our passion we’d like to talk to you. We are busy growing the group of like-minded folks.

One Product, Many Benefits

We find that customers choose ScopeMaster for different reasons.  The one thing that they all have in common, is that all of our customers want to deliver software faster, with less rework and more predictability.

The two main reasons customers choose ScopeMaster are:

  • Raise the quality and speed of requirements work
  • Better sizing or estimation

Responsible, transparent use of AI

We believe that artificial intelligence must be used in a responsible and transparent way. Only through this transparency can humans remain the ultimate decision makers.

  • Use Natural Language Processing based on fixed language model.
  • ScopeMaster makes suggestions and recommendations, but never decides for you.

ScopeMaster Ltd the company, was established in 2018. The company was formed around the creation of the world’s first commercial requirements analysis tool. We are based in the UK and have representation across a growing number of locations around the world. If you would like to join us on this very exciting journey, please get in touch.

  • 5 years in business

  • Over $900m of software projects analysed

  • Ground-breaking, award-winning product

  • Based in the UK, global reach

  • Average customer ROI of over 10x in 3 months

  • Global customer base

  • Partner network

  • Academically reviewed and endorsed

  • Proven results 

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The Team

Colin Hammond, CEO Scopemaster Ltd

Colin Hammond

Founder, CEO

Colin has over 35 years of IT industry experience.  By first understanding the principles of software development work, it is possible to identify techniques and metrics that actually work.  It was this insight that stimulated him to develop the ground breaking tool ScopeMaster that automates hitherto manually intensive work.

Some of Colin’s favourite sayings:

“Everything should be made as simple as possible but no more simple”

“The maths of testing early stacks up; entering a sprint with poor user stories may be agile but it’s not lean” (Dr Simon Wright)

“Great things are achieved by small groups of highly competent people”

Professor Sylvie Trudel

Training

“COSMIC Sizing is at the heart of responsible software management”

Professor Sylvie Trudel is at the heart of the COSMIC Sizing community and has been teaching in the methodology to students and industry for many years.

Dr Simon Wright

Consulting and Training

“Entering a sprint with unrefined user stories may be agile but it’s certainly not lean”

Simon has spent over 20 years working on software requirements users stories and system specifications.  He brings an incredible depth of knowledge to educating and guiding clients to make the most of the potential of ScopeMaster.

Huw Thomas

Technical  Specialist

Huw is focusing on technical advancements in both language analysis and containerisation.

Wayne Rogers

Business Development

Wayne is our engine for getting the word out, developing our sales pipeline and ensuring customers are succeeding.

Jonathan Elder

Sales and Marketing

Jonathan leads our digital marketing and sales activities.

Vicky Lorriman

Digital Marketing

Vicky runs the digital side of ScopeMaster’s marketing activities.

Advisors

Richard Dannan

Advisor

Richard is an enterprise architect with extensive experience.  He brings practical technical and commercial advice to the team.

Lonnie Franks

Advisor/Consultant

Lonnie has over 50 years in IT and has seen it all before.   He brings incredible insight and experience to the team.

Rupert Robin

Advisor/investor

Rupert has over 25 years in business and software.   He brings many skills including high energy, sales experience, clarity of thought and focus to the board.

Quality and Functional Sizing
are in our DNA.

ScopeMaster® is a cloud-hosted tool for improving the quality, estimation and delivery of software projects.  ScopeMaster® analyses written requirements or user stories to deliver insight, exposing potential defects, improvement suggestions and functional size estimates that can be used to make your software projects more successful.

ScopeMaster’s automated analyser uses AI and numerous other automated analysis steps that have been designed to bring insight, expose problems and estimate size.  Using ScopeMaster®, you can achieve requirements QA productivity improvements of up to 20x.

Scopemaster® has been developed in the UK and is owned by ScopeMaster Ltd.  The automated analysis performed by ScopeMaster is unique and is subject to International patent application (PCT/GB2019/050478) originally from February 2018.   ScopeMaster® is a registered trademark 3291993.

A note from the author:

Thank you for your interest in ScopeMaster.

I set out to create a tool that would help me as a software project manager with the job of measuring software size.  I learned about COSMIC function points and wanted to use them instead of IFPUG FP which I had been using successfully for many years.  It turns out that COSMIC was an excellent choice and then, by accident, I created a tool that is very effective in finding defects in requirements.

Nearly a year later, it is so exciting to see analysts and project managers getting such significant and rapid benefits from using ScopeMaster®.   The software development industry has had such a poor reputation for predictable, on-time, on budget projects.  I am convinced that ScopeMaster has the potential to make a notable contribution to improving the reputation of software project deliveries.

I am very grateful for the advice and wisdom of experts who have helped me validate ScopeMaster®, especially Lonnie Franks, Charles Symons, Professor Alain Abran and  Bernard Lonedix.  I am also indebted to Capers Jones whose books have inspired me on this journey.

Colin Hammond, November 2018

“This is really neat….other than general readability, it’s the only static analysis tool for requirements that I have ever seen”
Capers Jones, Author and Software Metrics expert
I would be shocked if this didn’t improve development team productivity by at least 10%.
Lonnie Franks, Consultant Project Assurance

This is of great potential benefit for the requirements community as well as the sizing community.  I share your excitement.

Professor Alain Abran, Department of software engineering and information technology - Ecole de technologie superieure - University of Québec (Canada)

Another benefit of your tool is that,  not only does it interpret the requirements but it actually writes the detail specifications, which can then be used as test cases.

Professor Alain Abran, Department of software engineering and information technology - Ecole de technologie superieure - University of Québec (Canada)

It is much harder to remove defects from requirements and design that it is from source code.  But if those defects are not removed prior to testing, testing itself cannot find them.

Capers Jones, The Economics of Software Quality

Scopemaster doesn’t just help find the requirements defects but helps educate authors to prevent them in future!

Lonnie Franks, Project Assurance Expert
ScopeMaster is an integral part of our project solution set
Jasper, Head of Architecture

Its amazing that you have come up with the right set of functional requirements.

Professor Alain Abran, Department of software engineering and information technology - Ecole de technologie superieure - University of Québec (Canada)

Using ScopeMaster, not only I did I find and fix 150 defects in 2 days, it was actually fun to use!

Lonnie Franks, Project Assurance Expert

“ScopeMaster is a game changer, it’s awesome, and I continue to be blown away by what it does. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I wish I’d had ScopeMaster 22 years ago”

Ian Londesbrough, Project Test Manager
Mike Sanders Agile Project Manager

“…I want to use it on any future projects, whether agile or waterfall, to tighten up the requirements as early as possible. To me it’s a no brainer”

Mike Sanders, Agile Project Manager

“I think it’s amazing, it does so many things. Its a great tool!”

University of Dayton Research Institute

At the University of Dayton Research Institute, we pride ourselves on delivering; high-quality work, on time and budget, and having total transparency with our clients. ScopeMaster gives us a powerful tool to not only quickly and efficiently price our efforts based on industry standards but also add a new layer of customer interaction through its reports.

Joshua Handwerker Team Lead/System Architect, Software Systems Software & Sensor Systems Division, University of Dayton Research Institute

Analysis Hyperautomated

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