SPaMCAST 120 - Peter Thomas, Mature Metrics Programs

Welcome to the Software Process and Measurement Cast 120. SPaMCAST 120 features my interview with Peter Thomas, a techincal specialist in software sizing and related fields at Steria.  He is also a member of the Counting Practice Committee in International Function Point User's Group.  We discussed the attributes of mature metric programs.  Peter is a Chartered IT Professional with experience in project management, design, implementation, test, and deployment of defence and commercial software.He is recognised as a technical specialist in software sizing, IT measurement, and estimating, in Steria, IBM, and the IT industry. Steria is an IT Services company whose revenues have exceeded 1 billion Euros each year since 2005.  He has been an International Function Point User’s Group (IFPUG) Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS) since the late 90s and a member of the IFPUG Counting Practices Committee, “owner” of International Standards Organisation (ISO) standard ISO/IEC 20926 since January 2007.He was the technical lead of IBM’s Function Point Centre of Competence, which is the successor to Allan Albrecht’s IBM Research team which developed the Function Point software sizing technique. His role in Steria requires him to ensure productivity measurements are performed correctly, in particular Function Point counts to minimise contract penalties.  Also he advises executives responsible for delivery on methods to manage the productivity performance against other targets including off shoring and contribute to bids. His role in IBM involved business operations measurement coordination, quality assurance reviews, estimating support to bids, and Software Engineering Institute Capability Maturity Model Integrated (SEI CMMI) appraisals as well as occasional function point analysis to keep in contact with the real world of project delivery. Since 2004, he has regularly presented at technical conferences in the UK and USA and been invited to speak again as a result of the feedback.  In 2006 & 2010 he presented the Ian Drummond Memorial lecture at the United Kingdom Software Metrics Association annual conference. Work Website: IFPUG Counting Practice Committe Web Page: Linked In: Email: Shameless Ad for my book! co-authored by Murali Chematuri and myself and published by J. Ross Publishing is on the bookshelves!  According to Firas Al-Sheikh of Amman,Jordan, "This book will prove that software projects should not be a tedious process,neither for you or your team." Have you bought your copy? Contact information for the Software Process and Measurement CastEmail:  Voicemail:  +1-206-888-6111Website: Twitter: Facebook:  Next!SPaMCAST 121 will talk about burn down charts (and maybe burn up charts) which will be part of the Metrics Minute.