Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

The IT industry is a field where "new technologies" and "new methods" emerge one after another. For example, at present, it is quite popular-blockchain, AI (artificial intelligence), micro services, open source, cloud, Internet of things, as well as Agile, DevOps and so on.

Recently, I read an article by Canadian software expert Steven Woodward in a foreign magazine, which is about how function points play a role in the field of new technology. Here to share and discuss with you, but also not rigidly adhere to the original text.

Mr. Woodward recalled that the first international conference on function points was in 1992, when the "new technologies" were graphical interfaces (GUI) and relational databases. See here, I also suddenly think of the "pre-Windows95" era.

The new technology "comes" vigorously, and "goes" silently. For example: just a few years ago, many domestic manufacturers promoted (hoodwinked) SOA with great fanfare, but now they can all be embarrassed to mention it.

The culture of the IT industry has changed over the years, some for the better and some for the worse.

Customers' expectations of "ease of use", "intuition" and "timely feedback" have given birth to a new term in the IT industry-"customer experience". At the same time, some organizations have set up (bought) a lot of "shadow IT systems".

The wide application of mobile Internet has given birth to "APP culture" and incubated a large number of new companies and developers. Mr. Woodward concluded that the core of the so-called "APP culture" is "quick results", quality, privacy and security.

Seeing here, I wonder whether China's APP industry has this culture?

For "function point analysis", it is no longer a new technology and will soon have a history of 40 years. What about Agile? Its manifesto has been issued for nearly 18 years.

The essence of a function point is to provide an "insight" to help the team discuss requirements and solve problems. And ensure the final delivery of the right IT products-to meet the customer's business goals, while having high performance-to-price ratio and quality.

For example, in Agile, the use of function point information can ensure that the plan for each Sprint is achievable and executable.

To sum up, function point analysis can provide three valuable information for "new technologies":

1. Boundary

The development trend of modern organizations and governments is "federation" and "alliance", and "groups" should be established.

The trend of technological development is to coordinate and integrate more and more key information to form a "federal" solution with higher efficiency and lower cost. For this new type of solution, it is rarely developed, deployed, and supported by an independent organization.

In this regard, the most typical example is the "blockchain".

As for function point analysis, the first thing is to make clear the "system boundary". It is at this point that it can become the administrator of the integration and division of the solution.

2. Data

The essence of information technology is to preserve, transmit and process data.

Whether it is new or old technology, the value of data is often higher than "processes and functions". Some readers who are familiar with the function point method may want to smile at this point.

The function point method emphasizes "data modeling", which is a science and art. I don't know about the situation abroad, but many organizations at home are very weak on this point. Many teams do not know how many data assets they manage and maintain. For example, to establish a good "class" of data, you should consider factors such as GDPR (EU General data Protection Regulation), security architecture, performance, cost, quality, progress, customer experience and so on.

At the beginning of the birth of function point method, the value of data function was emphasized very much. The function point method can well manage the "classes" and "properties" of the data.

3. Process and function

Today, with the development of IT, the process and function are becoming more and more complex. More and more domestic organizations begin to say "end-to-end". Many solutions are characterized by portability, interaction, automation, flexibility, reducing costs, improving quality, and shortening construction periods.

At this point, the function point approach is very similar to the enterprise architecture (EA) model, emphasizing processes and interactions, so it can be easily extended to new technologies such as blockchain, AI, and so on, for good scale measurement.

Summary

It is still necessary to return to the essence of "information theory". In the face of an increasingly complex environment, people need more and more information to make "more correct" decisions.

This is the original intention of the organization to build (purchase) IT products. In this management process, the organization wants to focus on customer value, control risks, and balance resources. The premise of all this is to measure the "scale" of the system.

In other words, a good manager must first know what is the most important information in the information product itself.

(the copyright of this article belongs to Beijing Software cost Evaluation Technology Innovation Alliance, and the source should be indicated when reprinted.)

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.