Guest Editor's Introduction: Renewing the Software Project Management Life Cycle

Abstract

When a project has concluded, the computers turned off, the source files archived, and the personnel reassigned, how do measure its success? IT managers have suspected for a long time that a successful software project doesn't just deliver the right system built the right way, but rather makes other kinds of contributions to enriching the enterprise, such as providing personnel with valuable training and experience. Much of the renewed interest in project retrospectives is rooted in the realization that success isn't just about building the system, but learning from the experience, and managers haven't done their jobs if they haven't captured those benefits, too. The idea that a successful software project also generates intangible benefits for the enterprise has been around for a while, but we're seeing renewed interest in the discipline of intellectual capital reporting. The New Club of Paris is bringing intellectual capital reporting to the attention of IT managers and even national governments as a fundamental tool in their strategies for remaining competitive in the knowledge society. These new approaches to software project evaluation and measurement illustrate how some of our most sacred tenets are coming under scru-tiny-including the very principle of software measurement itself. Last year, Tom de Marco wondered whether his influential management maxim, you can't control what can't measure, introduced over three decades ago, needs revision in view of today's value-oriented IT environment.