Blog
Planning Software Projects Successfully
We all aspire that our software projects are delivered on time and budget*. Software is complex and unless we plan for success, it is unlikely to “just happen”. When Planning Software Projects, fortunately we have the experience of past failures from which we can learn. We should embrace the learnings from these mistakes so that our projects can avoid the “pathological” route. What do we mean by a project being late? Lateness is really about a project being delivered late in relation to expectations, or in other words late vs the estimate. To avoid disappointment we need to create realistic expectations [...]
Ron Jeffries Update on ScopeMaster and COSMIC Sizing
Ron Jeffries is one of the three founders of the Extreme Programming software development methodology circa 1996, along with Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham. He is also a co-signatory of the Agile Manifesto. A few weeks ago he set us a challenge to estimate some requirements for a game that he is working on. We rose to the challenge and presented him with some examples based on his own current work, see the previous post here After a couple of enjoyable conversations with Ron, he wrote his views, and experience in this readable blog post: https://ronjeffries.com/articles/-z022/0222ff/est-cosmic=other/ 5 minute read. Here are some selected extracts [...]
Ron Jeffries Estimation Challenge
Estimating Features for A Software Game Ron Jeffries posed a software estimation challenge to determine the likely effort required to deliver a forthcoming featureset of a game that he and his team are writing. I decided to take up this challenge and carry out a COSMIC sizing estimate, and perhaps in doing so, will turn some heads towards the merits of CFP estimation and how it can help with design-thinking. We are asked to estimate the effort required to design some functionality within a partially built game, here is the high level requirement: Provide the ability for a Level Design Team Member to [...]
Backlog refinement – automated
Backlog Refinement Backlog refinement is the activity of preparing work items for your software team to work on. Your backlog of user stories, developer tasks and epic ideas is the queue of potential work items to work on in upcoming weeks (sprints). To keep a steady flow of work for the team, a list of refined backlog items should be ready for the team to start working on at any time. There should be slightly more ready and prioritised than the team needs for the upcoming few sprints. What does Backlog Refinement Mean? Backlog Refinement (aka backlog grooming) means working on the [...]
ScopeMaster introduces NFR Detection
March 28th 2022, Marlow UK Scopemaster Ltd announces a new capability to detect potential non-functional requirements from within written software requirements. Using Natural Language processing and keywords analysis, the ScopeMaster requirements analyser is able to detect potential non-functional requirements. Non-functional requirements typically have a significant impact on system architecture. Getting the architecture right at the beginning of a project is dependent on knowing the NFRs. ScopeMaster's ability to detect these NFRs at the outset means projects will have a lower risk of late architecture changes, lower cost and a greater chance of meeting needs on time and budget. [...]
New – ScopeMaster Automates Simulink Sizing
Embedded Systems are Growing Simulink is a leading tool for developing embedded software systems. Modern society is familiar with seeing embedded software in hundreds of devices we use on a daily basis. As we add more and more sophistication to embedded systems in these devices, understanding size becomes critical. Knowledge of software size becomes of increasing importance. Vehicle Systems are Growing Cars, Trucks, Buses, Trains and Heavy vehicles are growing in sophistication with rapidly increasing amounts of software. Most of that software is designed and simulated in tools such as Simulink. Better Cost Control Knowing the size is a great foundation for controlling costs [...]
