ISBSG Resources - Information to guide your project
Project Control

The importance of Project Control

For organizations employing functional size measurement (FSM) for project control, ISBSG data is a priceless resource. It offers a wealth of real-world project information, enabling precise benchmarking and informed decision-making.

ISBSG data aids in evaluating the effectiveness of FSM methodologies and empowers organizations to enhance project control by making data-driven choices.

By leveraging this data, businesses can optimize resource allocation, mitigate risks, and improve cost management, resulting in more efficient and predictable project outcomes.

ISBSG data serves as the cornerstone for achieving superior project control, promoting cost-effectiveness, and ensuring successful project delivery.

ISBSG has published many free resources on this topic, please check them here: https://www.isbsg.org/category/project-control/

Improve your knowledge of project control

Read articles on project control, by leading software metrics experts.

Overview of ISBSG Resources

18 May 2025

The ISBSG website offers a range of resources to: optimize project outcomes, advance software engineering knowledge, and support organizations in achieving competitive excellence. ISBSG resources include: data repositories, benchmarking tools, publications, educational resources, and community engagement opportunities. By leveraging the D&E and Maintenance repositories, PDQ tool, reports, and free content, stakeholders can make informed decisions, validate estimations, and benchmark performance against industry standards.

Software Metrics Supports Business Decisions

13 May 2025

Ultimately, measuring performance in agile teams is about: supporting continuous improvement, making informed decisions, ensuring value delivery and fostering a collaborative and learning-oriented culture. By correctly using the right metrics, organizations can empower their agile teams to thrive and deliver exceptional results.

Analysis of Delivery Speed

15 April 2025

Many organizations have moved to an agile way of working. Their goal is to produce as much value as possible in fixed iterations (sprints). Story Point estimation, which is used to estimate work effort, is a non-standardized, subjective, relative estimation method. Only effort metrics based on standardized methods for functional size measurement can be used to compare team performance metrics, such as Velocity (Delivery Speed) in a meaningful way. In the ISBSG Repository, the sizes of projects are measured using standardized (ISO compliant) methods. Therefore, it is possible to compare the delivery speed between teams and organizations. In this short paper, the Delivery Speed of agile projects delivered with the primary programming language of Java is analyzed.

Global Trends in Software Engineering

14 March 2025

This short paper summarises the results of the recently published Global Trend Research Report on Software Engineering, published by the Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA) of Japan. Many experts from the software measurement community, (e.g., from Nesma, COSMIC, IFPUG, ISBSG, etc.,) were interviewed and provided input for this research.

Effort Distribution in Agile Teams

16 March 2024

In this short paper, the difference in productivity (i.e., effort distribution) between traditional and agile projects is analysed. It explores the importance of optimal effort distributions in agile development and discusses general trends. It compares a subset of ISBSG project data to general effort distribution observed in agile development teams.

Story Points versus Function Points

22 December 2023

This short paper describes and compares two methods of measurement used in software projects - Story Points and Functional Size Measurement. The choice of metrics can significantly influence decision-making and behavior within an organization. Therefore Story Points and Functional Size Measurement are rated for their relevance to "good" metrics (e.g., cost effectiveness).

Analysis of Extra Large Projects

14 November 2023

We will look at the XL projects in the ISBSG database. These are projects with a functional size that is greater than 3000 Nesma or IFPUG function Points. The following characteristics will be investigated: delivery rate and speed, projects per industry sector, project duration based on programming language, year of completion.

ITIL4 Guiding Principles

25 April 2023

ITIL4 has 7 recommendations to improving services. They are relevant for all businesses. Use real-life examples to apply these principles from a measurement perspective .

CRM Projects

2 February 2023

This short paper determines whether there are key factors that influence the productivity and delivery speed of CRM projects.

Legacy Applications

9 January 2023

This short paper examines a high-level business case to to rebuild a Cobol legacy application in Java. ISBSG Data, for similar Java projects, provides metrics for: cost, effort, maintenance and support. This information is used as the basis for the business case.

Output Based Contracting

8 November 2022

In this short paper, we explain the way ISBSG data can be used to contract application development teams based on output instead of the usual Time & Materials method.

Measuring Value Added

4 October 2022

With agile, you choose to develop the functionality that provides the most value for the customer, post-development. What functionality does the customer receive and how can it be measured?

Data for Decisions

4 October 2022

Learn how ISBSG data is used in practice to make better decisions regarding Application Development related issues.

Analysis of Cosmic Projects

31 May 2022

This short paper focuses on projects, in the ISBSG Repository, that are sized using COSMIC functional-sizing methods.

Cloud Computing

26 January 2022

When business leaders move their IT systems and infrastructure into the cloud, their capital is not tied up in maintaining data-centers.

Software Quality Trends

25 January 2022

The number of defects per 1000 FP developed indicates the effectiveness of the development and testing process.

Joint Confidence Level

25 January 2022

Joint Confidence Level Analysis was successful used for NASA. Learn how parametric and machine learning methods were used.

Historical Data

25 January 2022

In DevOps the “Third Way” means “continuous experimentation & learning”. This is the highest maturity level for decision-making.

Harry Potter and the 7 Secrets of the IFPUG Function

30 April 2021

Julián Gómez, Brand Manager LedaMC discusses the 7 key points of function point methodology: product focus, improved communications, contextualizing software developments, method standardization and certification.

Successful Software Project Delivery

24 March 2021

Successful software delivery relies on: accurate planning & estimation, managing scope, using correct resources and methodologies, being AGILE and innovative.