The use of data envelopment analysis in the measurement of software development team performance: A quality focused approach

For much of its existence the software industry has been plagued by shortcomings in its ability to consistently develop effective products in an efficient manner. This has resulted in budget and schedule overruns, unmet user needs, unusable applications, and ultimately a loss of business.; The linear-programming tool Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is applied to the measurement of software development efficiency. New DEA models are constructed and applied to project data provided by a large Canadian Financial Institution (FI). One of the main contributions to the literature is the use of quality metrics, namely client satisfaction survey scores measuring software team performance. And uniquely, size metrics were left out of the analysis.; The technical and scale efficiencies of the software projects are analyzed using two separate DEA models. Characteristics of efficient projects are analyzed, and relationships among quality, efficiency, and other projects factors are investigated.