Nesma considers the availability of historical data of software projects and maintenance of an utmost importance for the industry. Nesma is therefore a proud member of the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG). This not-for-profit organization collects industry project data in order to help the industry to advance by making better decisions based on data. A new ‘Development & Enhancement’ repository with about 7.500 software projects is about to be released. Nesma members can purchase this repository with a considerable discount (depending on membership type) from Nesma.
Once a year, ISBSG organizes a workshop where the members are invited to discuss and influence the strategy, the products, the data collection processes and other issues. Since 2013, the workshop is connected with a 1-day conference called ‘IT Confidence’. This conference focuses on ways to use historical data for project estimating, project control, benchmarking and performance measurement. This year the Japanese JFPUG (Japanese function points user group) organization hosted the IT Confidence and ISBSG workshop in Tokyo as part of their 20 year anniversary. There were a number of very interesting presentations, including one that showed how the Japanese use the Nesma estimated method to interest Japanese companies to use functional size measurement. This is a ‘must-read’ for Nesma enthusiasts!
On behalf of Nesma, I was present to chair the ISBSG workshop in my role as the current ISBSG president. I got re-elected again and will be the ISBSG president also the following year. For Nesma this is a great achievement and it shows again the way Nesma is influencing the way the software metrics industry is shaping.
The IT Confidence presentations and papers can be downloaded for free from the conference website.
For more information about ISBSG, check www.isbsg.org or contact the Nesma Benchmarking committee.
About the author
Harold van Heeringen is president of the ISBSG, board member of Nesma and chairman of the Nesma Benchmarking committee.