AUTOMATED SOFTWARE METRICS, REPOSITORY EVALUATION AND SOFTWARE ASSET MANAGEMENT: NEW TOOLS AND PERSPECTIVES FOR MANAGING INTEGRATED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (I-CASE)

Automated collection of software metrics in computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments opens up new avenues for improving the management of software development operations, as well as shifting the focus of management's control efforts from "software projectâ to "software assets" stored in a centralized repository. Repository evaluation, a new direction for software metrics research in the 1990s, promises a fresh view of software development performance for a range of responsibility levels. We discuss the automation of function point and code reuse analysis in the context of an integrated CASE (I-CASE) environment deployed at a large investment bank in New York City. The development of an automated code reuse analysis tool prompted us to re-think how to measure and interpret code reuse in the I-CASE environment. The metrics we propose describe three dimensions of code reuse -- leverage, value and classification -- and we examine the value of applying them on a project and a repository-wide basis.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

MEASURING THE DEVELOPMENT PERFORMANCE OF INTEGRATED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (I-CASE): A SYNTHESIS OF FIELD STUDY RESULTS FROM THE FIRST BOSTON CORPORATION

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

QUANTIFYING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE 'BUSINESS VALUE LINKAGE' FRAMEWORK

Senior management's ability to gauge the business value of investments in information technology (IT) has been seriously hampered by a lack of analytic tools to conduct sound performance assessment. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework called a "business value linkage" that is used to represent the processes by which the direct outputs of an IT are transformed within the firm and its operating environment into enhanced revenues, reduced costs and new strategic opportunities to increase market share. Utilizing appropriate modeling and econometric methods, we illustrate our approach by analyzing several hard-to-measure aspects of the business value of automated teller machines (ATMs) in retail electronic banking. The results show that the hardest to measure impacts in some cases can have the greatest business value.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

CASE STUDY OF ELECTRONIC BANKING AT MERIDIAN BANCORP

The paper illustrates âbusiness value linkage impact analysisâ, a new method for measuring the business value of information technology (IT), in the context of a case study of electronic banking operations at Meridian Bancorp, a large commercial bank. Management science models were constructed to gauge the impact of automated teller machines (ATMs) on branch teller labour productivity and retail deposit market share, and the potential for substitution of labour by ATMs is shown. Econometric estimation of the models yielded the following results: the efficiency of teller labour was found to decline in the presence of a branch ATM; a bank's ATM network decision was shown to be an important determinant of the relative size of the retail deposit market it could capture in south-east Pennsylvania; membership in the regionally dominant MAC ATM network leveraged retail deposit market share when a clear majority of local branches and ATMs were members of a regionally smaller, competing network: and high-density ATM deployment did not lead to increases in the overall size of the deposit market.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR AUTOMATING SOFTWARE METRICS IN OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTS

This paper makes the business case for automating the collection of software metrics for gauging development performance in integrated computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments that are characterized by an object-oriented development methodology and a centralized repository. The automation of function point analysis is discussed in the context of such an integrated CASE environment (ICE). We also discuss new metrics that describe three different dimensions of code reuse -- leverage, value and classification -- and examine the p,ossibility of utilizing objects as means to estimate software development labor and measure productivity. We argue that the automated collection of these software metrics opens up new avenues for refining the management of software development projects and controlling stra-egic costs.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO THE MEASUREMENT OF IT BUSINESS VALUE - PART I: A MANAGER'S GUIDE TO 'BUSINESS VALUE LINKAGE' IMPACT ANALYSIS

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

QUANTIFYING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND APPLICATION TO ELECTRONIC BANKING

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

MANAGING DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIVITY OF THE COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (CASE) PROCESS WITH DYNAMIC LIFE CYCLE TRAJECTORY METRICS

This paper proposes a new vision for the measurement and management of development productivity related to computer aided software engineering (CASE) technology. We propose that they be monitored and controlled via the application of dynamic software development "life cycle trajectory metrics." This view develops out of management accounting approaches for process control and recent advances in CASE technology that make automated measurement possible. We suggest that current approaches involve the use of "static metricsâ for estimation and evaluation, with the result that the depth of the insights they can provide to management is necessarily limited. They only provide "point estimatesâ of output or productivity at the beginning and end of the project. Yet to manage software development proactively for improved efficiency and effectiveness, management needs to track the range of activities and effort across the entire software development life cycle. This can only be accomplished when timely and relevant information is obtained about the software size output, as well as costs, via âdynamic metrics,â which provide a richer phase-by-phase view.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO THE MEASUREMENT OF IT BUSINESS VALUE - PART 2: A CASE STUDY OF ELECTRONIC BANKING OPERATIONS AT MERIDIAN BANCORP

Information Systems Working Papers Serie

AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF OBJECT-BASED OUTPUT MEASUREMENT METRICS IN A COMPUTER AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (CASE) ENVIRONMENT

Existing output measurement metrics for cost estimation and development productivity need to be re-examined to determine their performance in computer aided software engineering (CASE) development environments. This paper critiques and empirically evaluates four approaches to the measurement of outputs. Two of the metrics, raw function counts and function points, are based on the function point analysis methodology pioneered by Albrecht and Gaffney at IBM (ALBR83). The second two, object counts and object points, are based on a new approach -- object points analysis -- that is introduced here for the first time. The latter metrics are specialized for output measurement in object-based CASE environments that include a centralized object repository. Estimation results for nineteen large-scale CASE projects show that the new metrics have the potential to yield as accurate, yet easier to obtain estimates than function points-based measures.Information Systems Working Papers Serie