Corporate Software Risk Reduction in a Fortune 500 Company
Capers Jones · Auerbach Publications eBooks · 2021
The chairman of a major international telecom company was troubled by a number of chronic software issues that included cost overruns, schedule delays, and poor quality after delivery. In order to solve these problems, a team of outside experts was brought in to do a corporate-wide survey of software practices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Total software employment was over 10,000 people at the time of the study divided among 50 locations in 20 countries. The total volume of software owned by the company topped 7,000,000 function points. The annual software budget was about $1.5 billion but almost half of this amount went to bug repairs or cancelled projects. The study recommended a number of improvement strategies: (1) careful training of new software personnel as soon as they came on board; (2) annual training for existing personnel; (3) improved quality control; (4) improved estimation before starting key projects; (5) improved measures during development. Within three years, quality had improved by over 20% and costs had declined by over 10%. Customer satisfaction increased by over 40%.