Technique of CETIN: value assessment of development of information systems

The technique of CETIN is a new approach in value assessment of development of information systems which allows to estimate creation cost on early blueprint stages.

Advantages of a technique of CETIN are: assessment on the basis of the functional size and assessment on the basis of production processes of creation of the IC.

The technique considers state standards of the Republic of Kazakhstan in information technology field.

Reasons of a failure of IT projects

According to the researches StandishGroup the number of the IT projects completed successfully in 2008 was only 32% though the value and grew in comparison with data of 1995, but nevertheless is quite small.

According to opinions of experts of Standish Group among the reasons of failures of projects or a release of the project for a framework of terms, the budget and not achievement of the goal the following is selected:

• incomplete requirements;
• low extent of involvement of the customer and end users in development process;
• insufficient providing with resources;
• lack of planning;

and others.

At the same time consultants "Go Pro Management, Inc" consider that the real reasons of problems and failures of projects of software development are:

• the budget and terms of the project are appointed without the amount of the performed work;
• complexity of the description of real business requirements on start of the project

and others.

Both those and other reasons are directly connected with implementation planning of IT projects, namely with design of an information system and value assessment of development. Further in article approaches according to labor input of development of information systems^[1] will be considered].

The overview of the existing labor input assessment techniques

Historically there was a development of techniques of assessment of labor input and cost of development of information systems in two directions: measurement of code lines (SLOC) and measurement of the functional size (FPA). The scheme of evolution of techniques of value assessment of development of information systems is provided on the following drawing.

Development of techniques of value assessment of development

From world techniques and widespread COCOMO II and FPA IFPUG are the most successful now. Both techniques are based on a valuation principle of the functional size:

• FPA IFPUG makes assessment of the functional size in function points;
• by a technique of COCOMO II on the basis of the functional size using correction factors code terms are estimated, and on the basis of code lines the labor input and duration of development of an information system is estimated.

As COCOMO and IFPUG developers state, calculations for a technique can be made at early stages of development of an information system, however it not absolutely so.

For labor input assessment by a technique of IFPUG it is necessary to simulate in sufficient detail structure of an information system, its function, the number of interfaces, a data structure and attributes of data. Ideally, everything should occur quite so, i.e. the detailed project of an information system should be developed. For value assessment of development of an information system at a stage of budgeting of the state order or when developing requirements when using a technique of FPA IFPUG it is necessary to have technical specifications and requirement specifications to the software. Proceeding from realities of process of the order and development of information systems, this task is represented impracticable. Most often practice of the order of information systems according to the following scheme meets: the budget forms, then the feasibility study is developed, in an effect the Technical specifications are developed and development of an information system is conducted.

The valuation principle by a technique of COCOMO consists in assessment of code lines of the developed system, and on the basis of the applied development language labor input assessment according to code lines. Respectively assessment of the incured costs according to the developed functionality can be made on the basis of the implemented system.

Two visions of development process are given in the following scheme:

1. Ideal option – the most correct option where the project of a system, and then assessment of development of the IC is originally done. This approach takes place in private companies where refining of the budget is possible throughout development.

2. Often found option, or real option of development process – this approach takes place and practically always meets at the state order of information systems. Value assessment of development of an information system becomes on the basis of the concept, without in details developed project of an information system.

As shown in the drawing above, not one of the existing techniques of IFPUG and COCOMO cannot make value assessment of development of an information system at early stages, namely at a stage of determination of the budget of development and deployment of an information system (development of the Feasibility statement).

Now in Kazakhstan in most cases value assessment of development of information systems and budgeting forms on the basis of expert judgments, by analogy or "at random" that often does not reflect the actual cost of the ordered information systems. All this leads to sad statistics of unsuccessful projects.

Kazakhstan several times lifted a problem of value assessment of development of information systems. The list of the developed methods and their shortcomings is included below.

Technique of the Ministry of Finance of edition of 1994. The technique normalizes labor costs on projects (creation of queues of systems; development and to implementation of the project of a functional complex of tasks; binding of projects; support of the project; use of PEVM for debugging and commissioning). The main lack of a technique, are:

a. not clear border between different functions and separate units of similar functions (the technique does not give detailed definition of ANY of functions);

b. criteria of determination of complexity of PS are not acceptable because of rather broad orientation owing to what there is a high probability to receive not exact result for value assessment of information systems

Technique of assessment of labor input and cost of development of information systems of 2005. It is developed by JSC Natsionalnye informatsionnye tekhnologii together with Research institute of economy and informatization of transport, telecommunication. Value assessment of development of an information system is calculated on a measurement base of the functional size, amendments on key parameters of development and assessment of terms. The technique can be applied on early blueprint stages since calculations of the functional size are made on the basis of UML charts. Now the technique is not approved. The main shortcoming is that the applied coefficients are received in the expert way, researches on collecting of statistics of IT of developments and justification of the applied coefficients are necessary.

At the II Congress of the IT Enterprises of Kazakhstan the following requirements to the developed technique of assessment of labor input of development of the IC which to allow to consider shortcomings of the existing techniques for use of planning of IT projects in the Republic of Kazakhstan were submitted:

• compliance to the legislation, standards and the applied design methods and developments of information systems in RK;
• the principles of a technique should provide its application, both on the party of the Customer, and on the party of the Developer;
• The technique should be based on processes of lifecycle of information systems;
• The technique should be based on measurement of the functional size of functional user requirements;
• as input data requirements to an information system should be used;
• application of a technique for assessment of any information systems.
• use of a notation of UML, as the unified language for the requirement description and structure of an information system;
• use of entities of UMLV quality of input data for a technique.

For the period 2010-2011 Kazakhstan Associations of the IT companies together with the Company of the system researches "Factor" the Technique of assessment of labor input and cost of development and support of the application software was developed during creation of information systems (the Technique of CETIN).

The technique of CETIN is based on the above-stated valuation principles and excludes all shortcomings of her predecessors. Now there is a discussion of a technique. The text of a technique is submitted on the website of the Kazakhstan Association of the IT companies.

About a technique of CETIN

The technique is intended for calculation of labor input and cost of development of the application software of an information system of state body and is applied at a definition phase of the project of creation of an information system when planning the budget, at implementation of public procurements.

The technique is based on measurement of the functional size of an information system on the basis of functional user requirements to the developed information system. The functional size of an information system is measured by five functional units of measurement. The technique contains algorithms of determination of the functional size of an information system, calculation of labor input and cost of development and support of the application software. The technique considers also quality requirements and technical requirements to an information system. Cetinosnovana technique on the following principles:

1. Principle of support of lifecycle. This principle means that the Technique should be based on processes of lifecycle of the IC;

2. Principle of measurement of the functional size. This principle means that the Technique should be based on a method of measurement of the functional size of functional user requirements;

3. Principle of universality (not locality). This principle means that the Technique should be applicable for value assessment of development and support of any PPO.

4. The principle of the improving assessment. This principle means that the accuracy of assessment of labor input and cost of development of PPO should increase with increase in extent of detailing of functional requirements to the IC.

5. Accounting principle of the production technology of the software. The technique is based on development processes of PPO – methodology of RUP which provides implementation of development processes and maintenance of the IC according to lifecycle. Lifecycle of development of PPO according to methodology of RUP consists of six basic and three auxiliary processes.

Evaluation procedure

The evaluation procedure of labor input of development of PPO is provided by the next stages:

1) assessment of the functional size of the developed IC;

2) assessment of basic labor input of development of PPO;

3) determination of values of correction factors of labor input of development and support of PPO;

4) calculation of labor input of development of PPO taking into account correction factors;

5) assessment of term of development of PPO;

6) correction of labor input of development of PPO at reduction of term of development;

7) value assessment of development of PPO.

1. Assessment of the functional size

Assessment of the functional size of an information system is made on the basis of model of an information system and functional user requirements. The IC functional size represents five functional units of measurement

• quantity of options of use – C;
• the quantity of object types is E;
• amount of properties of object types – T;
• the number of interactions between object types – I;
• the quantity of node types is N.

The functional size is designated as SIZE= { C, E, T, I,N } For assessment of the functional size it is recommended to use model of the information system implemented on a modeling language of UML. In case of lack of the IC model, the appraiser is offered to fill out the questionnaire representing the list of questions of an information system. Such approach to allow to define functionality of a system at early stages, to estimate system borders. In a technique algorithms of determination of the functional size are provided.

2. Assessment of basic labor input

At assessment of basic labor input on the basis of technology of creation of information systems, using standards of labor input assessment of labor input of implementation of the information system which is characterized by earlier determined functional size becomes. The basic labor input represents assessment of functionality of a system without taking note of external factors.

3. Determination of correction factors

According to the revealed system performance and external factors in relation to a system values of correction factors are defined. Correction factors are based on the applied standards.

4. Calculation of labor input taking into account correction factors

On the basis of correction factors correction of basic labor input and calculation of labor input of development of the IC becomes.

5. Assessment of term of development of an information system

On the basis of labor input development term assessment to an information system becomes. Assessment a line of development is based on a mathematical model of dependence of term of development during the team work.

6. Correction of labor input of software development at reduction of term of development.

Quite often in practice of the state order there is a problem of reduction of term of development. Most often it it is connected with restrictions of planning of the budget, or directly the order of the IC in the middle of financial year or later. The mechanism of calculation of labor input at reduction of term of development which is based on a mathematical model of elasticity of labor input is provided in a technique.

7. Value assessment of development of PPO

Value assessment of development of PPO is calculated as the work of labor input of development on PPO on the cost of one man-month.

Author: Pustovoytenko Vitaly Vasilyevich / Gabbasov Mars Bekkaliyevich