15--Productivity Chapter Tools Adopting a new tool can be one of the quickest ways to improve productivity. But it can also be one of the riskiest. The most productive organizations have found ways to minimize the risks and maximize the productivity gains. Their strategy depends on recognizing three critical realities: 1. Productivity tools seldom produce the schedule savings their vendors promise. 2. Learning any new tool or practice initially lowers productivity. 3. Productivity tools that have been discredited sometimes produce significant schedule savings anyway, just not as significant as originally promised. Tools that have the potential to significantly change the way you work include: 4GLs, visual-programming languages, code generators, code or class libraries. 15.1 Role of Productivity Tools in Rapid Development There are many aspects of software development that are not repetitive and that are therefore not well suited to being automated by hardware and software tools. Areas of Special Applicability 1. DBMS-oriented applications 2. Custom applications 3. Throwaway prototyping Productivity Tool Limitations There are always things that are harder to do because you're using a tool, and sometimes there are defects in the tool itself. Ultimate Role of Productivity Tools on Rapid-Development Projects When you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of productivity tool use, the argument for emphasizing productivity tool use on rapid-development projects is far from clear-cut. Good organization and management appears to be far more of a critical success factor than technology. Any significant variations in schedule are more likely to result from differences in planning, management, requirements specification, and a host of other factors than they are from the technology used to construct the system. 15.2 Productivity-Tool Strategy Tool use is best treated as a long-term, strategic issue rather than a short-term, tactical fix. Tool usage is not a shortterm solution because it takes time and money to acquire and deploy tools effectively. It's no accident that the stateof-the-arts is called "the bleeding edge." If you can find a way to implement only the good tools, and if you can consistently do it sooner than the competition, this would provide a continual strategic competitive advantage. A strategy for acquiring and deploying new tools effectively should include the following elements. 1. Early identification of promising new tools 2. Timely and accurate evaluation of new tools 3. Rapid deployment of new tools that are found to be effective 4. Nondeployment of new tools that are found to be ineffective 5. Continuing reliance on older, proven tools If you implement a program containing these elements within your organization, you will achieve a strategic competitive advantage. 15.3 Productivity-Tool Acquisition Organizations that have random or casual methods of acquiring software tools waste about 50 percent of all the money they spend on tools. Worse, poor tool investments are associated with long schedules. Organizations that use formal acquisition strategies can drop their wastage to about 10 percent and avoid the associated schedule problems. The ultimate cost of a tool is only slightly related to its purchase price.
A. Acquisition Plan 1. Tools group. An effective, ongoing approach is to identify a person or group to be responsible for disseminating information about software tools. This group should be responsible for the following activities: a) Intelligence gathering. b) Evaluation c) Coordination d) Dissemination 2. Risks of setting up a tools group Overcontrol. The worst risk. The group might insist that all groups use only the tools has it "approved." The tools group should be set up as a service organization rather than as a standards organization. B. Selection Criteria 1. Estimated gain 2. Vendor stability 3. Quality 4. Maturity. A tool's maturity is often a good indication of both quality and vendor commitment. Some organizations wait until Version 3 before acquiring a tool. 5. Training time 6. Applicability 7. Compatibility 8. Growth envelope. Avoid selecting a tool that's only minimally sufficient for the job. 9. Customizing selection criteria C. Commitment Once you've made the tool selection, commit to it. 15.4 Productivity-Tool Use How you match tools to projects can have a major impact on your rapid-development capability. 1. When to Deploy On a project, there is a trade-off between the learning curve you climb in becoming familiar with a new tool and the productivity you gain once you become familiar. The first time you use a tool; it probably takes more time than if you hadn't used the tool at all. But to maintain the long-term development capability of your organization, to continue raising your productivity level, you sometimes have to adopt a new tool on a project even though it's a suboptimal solution for that particular project. However, a rapid-development project is usually not the right project on which to introduce a new tool. 2. Importance of Training The more powerful a tool is, the more difficult it can be to use effectively. 3. How much Schedule Reduction to Expect Switching from a 3GL to a 4GL is one of the more powerful ways to employ productivity tools in your behalf, but even when you can implement a program entirely in a 4GL, you cut the schedule by only about 25 percent. 15.5 Silver-Bullet Syndrome The biggest risk associated with software tool use is the silver-bullet syndrome--the nave belief that a single tool or technology will by itself dramatically reduce development time. This syndrome is especially common among lagging-edge organizations. The nave belief that a single tool can dramatically reduce development time leads us to try new tools one at a time rather than to take a more systematic approach. We adopt beneficial tools in serial rather than in parallel. A. Identifying Si...