Benchmarking for the Rest of Us

There is no shortage of data available to determine whether your software team is sufficiently productive. Whether it is the often quoted Chaos Report from the Standish Group, the quarterly updates from the Software Engineering Institute or the hidden project data behind parametric estimation models such as COCOMO II, it is seductive to hold your own performance against these standards for comparison.

We quickly find, though, that these comparisons bear little relevance for most organizations, especially those that are ‘up-and-coming’. It is the growing companies who are most in need of benchmarks to gauge their performance and progress. This discussion identifies the challenges with most published information, and enumerates the approaches that we can all use to generate meaningful benchmarking information.

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    One of the key components of UBC PM Intensive program was having Jim as the project facilitator. With Jim’s insight, guidance and support we were able to better understand the framework and approach of project management. I found it helpful that during our group meetings Jim was able to guide and improve our effectiveness by getting us to ask the right questions, to solve our own project problems. He was always there to help improve us as a team and would assist us when we needed to refocus on the task at hand. With Jim’s excellent professional guidance and Project Management expertise he made the PM Intensive program very relevant to our careers going forward. — Don Williams

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