Value-based software engineering

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.