| Value-Based Software Engineering 2006 Edition Contributor(s): Biffl, Stefan (Editor), Aurum, Aybuke (Editor), Boehm, Barry (Editor) |
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ISBN: 3540259937 ISBN-13: 9783540259930 Publisher: Springer OUR PRICE: $161.49 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2005 Annotation: The IT community has always struggled with questions concerning the value of an organizations investment in software and hardware. It is the goal of value-based software engineering (VBSE) to develop models and measures of value which are of use for managers, developers and users as they make tradeoff decisions between, for example, quality and cost or functionality and schedule such decisions must be economically feasible and comprehensible to the stakeholders with differing value perspectives. VBSE has its roots in work on software engineering economics, pioneered by Barry Boehm in the early 1980s. However, the emergence of a wider scope that defines VBSE is more recent. VBSE extends the merely technical ISO software engineering definition with elements not only from economics, but also from cognitive science, finance, management science, behavioural sciences, and decision sciences, giving rise to a truly multi-disciplinary framework. Biffl and his co-editors invited leading researchers and structured their contributions into three parts, following an introduction into the area by Boehm himself. They first detail the foundations of VBSE, followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods and techniques. The third part demonstrates the benefits of VBSE through concrete examples and case studies. This book deviates from the more anecdotal style of many management-oriented software engineering books and so appeals particularly to all readers who are interested in solid foundations for high-level aspects of software engineering decision making, i.e. to product or project managers driven by economics and to software engineering researchers and students. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Computers | Information Technology - Computers | Software Development & Engineering - General - Business & Economics | Economics - General |
| Dewey: 005.106 |
| Physical Information: 0.94" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (1.66 lbs) 388 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Ross Jeffery When, as a result of pressure from the CEO, the Chief Information Officer poses the question "Just what is this information system worth to the organization?" the IT staff members are typically at a loss. "That's a difficult question," they might say; or "well it really depends" is another answer. Clearly, neither of these is very satisfactory and yet both are correct. The IT community has struggled with qu- tions concerning the value of an organization's investment in software and ha- ware ever since it became a significant item in organizational budgets. And like all questions concerning value, the first step is the precise determination of the object being assessed and the second step is the identification of the entity to which the value is beneficial. In software engineering both of these can be difficult. The p- cise determination of the object can be complex. If it is an entire information s- tem in an organizational context that is the object of interest, then boundary defi- tion becomes an issue. Is the hardware and middleware to be included? Can the application exist without any other applications? If however the object of interest is, say, a software engineering activity such as testing within a particular project, then the boundary definition becomes a little easier. But the measure of benefit may become a little harder. |