Today’s enterprises know that continuous improvement of quality and productivity is a prerequisite for survival. Ever-changing market circumstances place a strong demand on agility and flexibility.
Information technology plays a supporting and sometimes even a trend-setting role. In the eyes of the organization, this role is not always fulfilled satisfactorily. Unfortunately, lengthy and expensive development projects are no exception as yet.
Now that an increase in labor productivity has caught people’s attention again and off shoring has become the de facto mode of operation, Industrialization and Global Sourcing are key elements in the present-day IT strategy of organizations. Transforming the IT operations from a project mode to a factory mode is part of this strategy.
Hence, the Software Factory becomes more than just a metaphor, both during times of economic recession when companies wish to minimize their costs, and during periods of economic boom, when short time-to-market is essential to increase market share. From the twelve years of practical experience with Atos Origin’s Software Development & Maintenance Center it has become apparent that the productivity and predictability of software solutions through a Software Factory approach have improved drastically.
The book “Managing a Software Factory” provides a complete and integral view of all aspects of a Software Factory. Catch words are predictability, reliability, quality and high productivity focusing on cost reduction and short time-to-market.
Managing a Software Factory can be used as a guide to professionalize your ICT organization and provides a manual for setting up software factories. It comprises the management aspects of process management, IT and human resource management, empowerment, continuous improvement, demand-supply management, contract management, global sourcing, quantitative software management and factory management, including some key performance indicators.
About the author
Kees Kranenburg works for Atos Origin as Portfolio & Competence manager. He is responsible for the services, competences and innovation of the Software Development & Maintenance Center in The Netherlands.
Kees Kranenburg’s earlier books have for an important part determined how software factories in The Netherlands are built. The way of thinking presented in earlier books has been at the foundation of the way the Atos Origin Software Development & Maintenance Center was built. This Software Development & Maintenance Center has been in a leading position in The Netherlands for over 10 years and is the only one of this size that has reached a CMMI level 3.