Return on Software

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January 31, 2005 (Computerworld) -- Return on Software: Maximizing the Return on Your Software Investment, Steve Tockey (Addison-Wesley, 621 pages, $49.99).
Many software developers (including quality assurance and project managers) don't know how to create a business plan for the IT projects they work on or how to calculate returns from such efforts. But they should at least have a basic understanding of the various costs that go into software development projects and the kinds of returns to expect.
Tockey, a principal consultant at Construx Software Builders Inc., a Bellevue, Wash.-based software consultancy, provides developers with a detailed approach for gaining that understanding.
Readers with scant business knowledge may have trouble following some of the financial terms, such as cash-flow stream and equal-payment-series sinking-fund (say that three times fast!), but Tockey does an effective job of describing these concepts in clear terms and providing sample formulas for readers to apply. He also thoroughly covers practical financial models, such as depreciation accounting methods and economic life cycles for IT assets.
Particularly useful are the self-study questions at the end of each chapter, which not only help readers to grasp concepts and techniques that have been introduced, but also allow them to reflect upon their previous project experiences.
Maximizing ROI on Software Development, by Vijay Sikka (Auberbach Publications, 253 pages, $79.95).
Whereas Tockey's book is dense with financial calculations that can be applied to software development projects, Sikka's is more of a primer for project managers or software developers who are just starting to get their arms around ROI models.
Sikka, who spent half of his 16-year career developing real-time software quality, Six Sigma and other systems for Intel Corp.'s manufacturing operations, deftly provides an introductory software ROI road map that readers can return to as needed after they've finished the book.
He addresses ROI largely in the context of newer development methodologies, such as agile programming, extreme programming, RAD and lean software development.
What the book may lack in depth (many of the subsections are just one or two paragraphs long) it makes up for in the comprehensive range of topics it offers the neophyte IT or business professional. Still, I would have expected to see more in-depth analysis on labor arbitrage, given that labor is the single largest cost in software development.
Project Rescue: Avoiding a Project Management Disaster, by Sanjiv Purba and Joseph J. Zucchero (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 358 pages, $39.99).
This book, which was written by two executives with nearly 50 years of IT management experience between them, is structured as a sequential approach to rescuing failing projects (i.e., identifying troubled projects, assessing the problems, planning the intervention, executing the intervention and so

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