Thought Leadership in Automated Software Sizing
We are very proud to have worked with leading academics to publish an article and to have it presented at a recent international software measurement conference. In collaboration with the Professor Alain Abran and Dr Erdir Ungan both of Université du Québec à Montréal, ScopeMaster author, Colin Hammond published a joint academic paper on the use of ScopeMaster for automated sizing and quality improvement of software requirements. The paper sets out the use of ScopeMaster on a reference set of requirements for the COSMIC sizing Methodology. This paper was presented in September 2018 at the IWSM Mensura conference in Beijing. Automated COSMIC Measurement and Requirement [...]
Join us at the BA Conference London
The ScopeMaster team will be at the Business Analysis Conference in London on 25-26th September. We’re looking forward to some exciting conversations about improving user story quality. Read more about the BA Conference London
Better User stories – Software Integration
User stories for API integration This is one of several short articles on writing better usr stories with ScopeMaster. A large amount of the software that is written these days is about integrating different sub-applications to create a new compound system. Consequently the software requirements will often talk about one system talking to another. This software integration is typically through APIs, such as RESTful APIs including microservices. So let us turn our attention to writing user stories that are about integration. Here is a simple example: a user on an commerce application reaches the address input section. They can enter their postcode, a lookup [...]
UK BCS Awards – Finalist
ScopeMaster - Press Release, 21st August 2018 We are delighted to have been shortlisted for the prestigious UK British Computing Society Awards 2018 in the category of: Technology Excellence, subcategory: UK Innovation and Entrepreneurship. "This award will go to a new product or service that has delivered measurable benefit for customers, can demonstrate the potential to be an important product for customers worldwide, and has been developed by a small team in the UK. The aim of this award is specifically to recognize innovation and achievement in IT product or service development in the UK. This can be either by a startup organization, or a small [...]
Automated Software Estimates
Software estimation is a topic of considerable discussion and frustration in many circles. Managers want/need to know how much it will cost and how long it will take to build/deliver. Developers typically push back on providing estimates because they are often mishandled. ScopeMaster was conceived as a tool to perform automated functional size estimates of software. The reason I set out to write a tool to do this is because, as a software project manager, functional size is one of the single most important pieces of data, metrics that I need to manage a project successfully. Functional Size measurement (FSM), is a universal means of [...]
More Effective PMO Stage Gates
Introduction to Stage Gates A stage gates process (also known as phase gate) is a common control mechanism associated with IT projects in corporate IT departments. A series of conceptual checklists are defined, such that unless all of the component activities have taken place, the project may not be allowed to proceed to the next stage. Also described here. Stage gate processes are mostly used by project managers, project management office personnel and business analysts. Typically each stage will have a checklist that must be followed. Projects must provide evidence of having performed certain checks, and gain approval before proceeding to the next stage or [...]
