Context

This use case is applicable to any kind of software development, independent of process methodologies (waterfall, agile, scaled agile, V-model, …) or type of software systems (IT applications, SaaS, mobile apps, embedded systems, …)

Even if the development work is done by a 3rd-party vendor, it is you who pays the price for inefficiencies in the development process. The vendor will present effort estimations to you that implicitly include the inefficiencies.

Pains

Your intuition tells you that there are many aspects of inefficiency in your software factory, but you lack the means of quantifying or identifying them. For example:

• Loss of time due to defect fixing.
  
• Inefficiencies resulting from poor knowledge distribution among team members combined with fluctuations in developer teams.
• Existing code complexities (“technical debt”) from the past that backfire now.
  
• Lack of test automation where developers work in edit-and-pray mode.
• And many more...

Most of the inefficiencies result from complex dynamics between activities regarding requirements, code, tests and ops - and cannot easily be pinpointed.
Even the experts in your organization cannot quantify inefficiencies and are forced to rely on their gut-feeling.

Gains

It would be helpful, if you could identify the various aspects of inefficiencies and quantify them in terms of KPIs. Such KPIs would reveal the untapped potential in your organization: Time currently wasted can be converted into additional value creation.

Quantitative KPIs can help to focus improvement measures on aspects with high potential for re-capturing additional time.

The dream comes true. You can drill-down from KPIs to the root causes of issues. This way you and your team can obtain actionable insights into how to improve your organization step-by-step.