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Calculating Productivity for Maintenance Projects

Last post 06-15-2009 5:38 AM by GuevaraG. 3 replies.
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  • 03-07-2009 7:38 AM

    • Nisha
    • Top 50 Contributor
    • Joined on 03-05-2009
    • Posts 5

    Calculating Productivity for Maintenance Projects

     Hi,

    We are working in a maintenance project. We receive three types of requests. Major Request, Minor Request, Enhancements.

    Client wants to know the productivity of our team. To capture productivity we should know the Size of the project. Since this is a maintenance project we just capture the planned effort and actual effort for each request. The effort estimation is done just by guessing, we dont have any estimation methodology like FP, UCP, LOC etc., Kindly let me know how to calculate the productivity and  give me some suggestions on how to make this a perfect process. Please share with me if you have any templates that would help me in this regard.

    Nisha

  • 03-10-2009 12:06 PM In reply to

    Re: Calculating Productivity for Maintenance Projects

    Hi Nisha,

    The calculation for productivity can be a simple as the value delivered to your client divided by the cost. The cost is comparatively easy to determine, such as person-hours of effort or money spent. Determining the value delivered is more difficult. A simple example would be to use lines of code (LOC) for the value delivered divided by the number of hours to develop the code. If 1000 lines of code were produced using 10 hours of effort, the productivity is 100 lines of code per hour.

    Unfortunately, simple productivity calculations are often misleading at best and counterproductive at worst. In our simple LOC example, the most productive development teams strive to minimize the amount of code, not maximize it. Measuring LOC per hour is therefore misleading and could have the negative consequence of encouraging quantity instead of productivity.

    And most clients are not interested in code. They are interested in functionality, quality, etc. I suggest working closely with your client to define your productivity goals, determine a means for measuring your productivity (value delivered and its costs), and periodically reviewing your results and refining your measurements.

    Tom

  • 03-15-2009 1:36 AM In reply to

    • Nisha
    • Top 50 Contributor
    • Joined on 03-05-2009
    • Posts 5

    Re: Calculating Productivity for Maintenance Projects

     Thanks Tom

  • 06-15-2009 5:38 AM In reply to

    Re: Calculating Productivity for Maintenance Projects

    Hi

    Productivity measurements or for that matter efficiency, utilization, effectiveness in IT is an Oxymoron.

    I guess we all try to 'systemize', 'industrialize' processes and try and make them measurable. We feel that we have achieved something when we talk about productivity improvements? Building or maintaining a software is unlike building a house. There are too many random variables which defeats the very objective of measuring one.

    Coding is more an art and less a science. We have trouble accepting the fact which manifests in the form of weird formulae.

    Just look how crazy we have started to become when we identify 'Size of the project'. I bet no 2 answers will be the same.

    Guevara G

     

     

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