Introducing JIRAGrader: a world-wide benchmark of JIRA projects
Programeter is a numbers company - we are obsessed with numbers and quantifying whatever information we need to track. This is why our main product is a metrics platform for software projects.
Up until now, all indicators and metrics that we calculate and present to our customers had a hard boundary - team - all numbers were related to a particular team and interpreted within context of that team. This is a good thing. It keeps you down on the ground. But we were always eager to benchmark our own projects against projects of other teams - are we better than mythical average software project?
You probably know that 80% of drivers consider themselves better than average :). We wonder if it is the same in software development. This is why we have build JIRAGrader - a world-wide benchmark of software projects using JIRA.
According to Atlassian there are more than 14,500 teams that are using JIRA. And now each one of them has a chance to benchmark their projects against the world. Isn’t it cool? We are freaking excited!
We wanted to make this as simple as possible - you only need to fill in a simple form with 3 fields to get started. Quality grade of your project will be available online in a minute and you will be able to share it with colleagues or delete it instantly, in case you don’t like what you see.
Today, there are more than 1,000 projects measured by JIRAGrader and among them are popular ones like Spring Security (ranked #3), JBoss Kernel (ranked #32), Greenhopper, and many others.
It’s time to grade your project!
Metric: Time to zero defects
Today I want to introduce the metric that will help you in judging efforts and time you need to make your product quality ideal. Even though, I understand that most of active projects would never reach the ideal state, it is still good to try. And measuring how far away you are from ideal results is a good starting point.
The metrics is Time to Zero Defects. Simply put it’s number of days it would take your team to reach 0 defects objective.
Why to measure that?
Knowing value of Time to Zero Defects metric helps your team to be realistic. Sometimes it’s very important to stop adding new functionality into the product, while old defects are still around.
Also we have used this metrics to benchmark quality of different products. Time to zero defects can serve as a good rulers, when you are comparing quality of products using different technologies or with different team size.
Also I think this measure is ideal for higher-level managers to get quick understanding of quality assurance status without digging deeper into the details.
How to measure Time to Zero Defects?
This metrics can be calculated in numerous ways, but we calculate it based on team history of reducing defects (resolved - new). The formula would look as follows:
Time to zero defects = Current number of open defects / daily average (resolved defects - new defects)
Basic authentication in Programeter
More reportage from the ground: the Programeter private install application now supports the basic authentication scheme.
(Captain obvious says: the basic authentication will allow to skip the process of logging in manually to Programeter each time you want to access the application. All the necessary credentials will thus be provided by other development tools that you use - it’s handy and time-saving.)
We decided it was a must for meeting the needs of large companies that use specific solutions to enable centrally managed accounts for all employees, such as LDAP storages and/or SSO solutions, for example.
To switch to the basic authentication scheme, all you need to do is ask the Programeter application administrator of your team to create in Programeter a user profile with the matching username. As a result of this simple authentication configuration, Programeter will use basic authentication scheme instead of asking you to create Programeter user account.
Tester’s perspective: 3 weighty mistakes in software development
I recently had a chat with a friend of mine, who works as a tester in an outsoursing software development and quality assurance company. He has been actively involved in the industry for 5-6 years now, working in a fast-paced atmosphere of outsourcing services’ company. So I was wondering what are the most common obstacles that he meets in his daily practice. What I heard may be summarized into three main points:
1. Wishful thinking
It appears that wishful thinking is a big problem in software development. Overly optimistic estimations in the beginning of the project or iterations result in unrealistic deadlines and grandiose plans, and end eventually in either shattered expectation or the team’s complete wear-out.
The fact is that we would all be happy to get it here, now, and with no cost. The truth, however, is that it’s hardly possible. Despite what we think, working overtime cannot solve the problem of not meeting the deadlines with no negative consequences, as first of all, pressure tends to result in the poorer software quality, and secondly, working more than 35 hours a week actually reduces team’s productivity by 10 to 70%! (according to Rules of Productivity by LostGarden.com.)
The best piece of advice here is thus very simple though efficient: stay real and discuss plans and their feasibility with your team-mates prior to their implementation.
2. Timely acting
Another software development weak spot is system architects introducing major modifications at late project stages, which evidently forces QA engineers urgently search for new defects, and then the engineers to fix them at the last minute even more urgently. Obviously, that really influences the quality of the project as well as its costs, let alone increasing tension within the team.
Although it is not always possible to foresee everything in advance, it goes without saying how important it is to think of other members of the team when it comes to teamwork. Good planning, for instance, and sticking to it can be very helpful in the majority of cases.
3. Reasonable resource planning
This one is fairly related to timely acting. Almost each project has drawbacks in either human resource, or time resource planning, or even both.
Too many people working on the project may result in poorer results, as well as too few people will not be possibly able to solve a wide range of problems that they encounter (again, Rules of Productivity is a must-see here). Another very frequent problem is the inability to manage the time. For example, an average software product is not tested at 100% just because QA teams don’t get enough time to have all the documentation (such as to create new or update existing test-cases) done.
Conclusion: stay agile in resource management too. If you see there’s a team who desperately needs more people at the same time while the other team’s members are reading e-books in order not to die of boredom, it may be a sign. If you’re a project manager and your QA team keeps on telling you they can’t get it all done by deadline, it may be a sign. If your team mates are all great while your software quality somehow isn’t… guess what? Yes, it may be a sign to reconsider your approach to resource management.
Disagree or have your own thoughts on the matter? Share it with us!
Good news for the Unfuddle users
As promised, we keep on building new connectors for your ALM tools to let your team stick to their favourite ones and yet allow you to collect software metrics from different tools to the irreplaceable all-embracing dashboards of Programeter. And this time, we are happy to announce the Unfuddle connector.
Unfuddle is a hosted project management tool for software development teams. It comprises the defect tracking tool, unlimited Subversion and Git repositories, and project dashboards providing info on the latest updates made to projects (see the screenshot below).
Unlike Programeter dashboards, though, Unfuddle does not provide in-depth analysis and enough statistical data of software projects necessary for software metrics monitoring.
And now, Unfuddle users can finally benefit from Programeter, and get access to its must-have functionalities, such as: product quality monitoring (including a list of critical software metrics with the variety of visualizations for each, and the quality wallboard), real-time processing of data, projects’ historical data availability, projects benchmarking feature, data export to Excel files option, and a list of other available built-in tool integrations.
The idea behind Programeter is to let you assess and manage your software’s quality as easy as it can only be, saving your time and energy on putting together all the relevant information from different sources as a jigsaw puzzle for actually working on quality and process improvement. Signing up only takes you a minute but saves you many hours of unnecessary routine. So if you haven’t got your free trial account, we call you not to miss your chance and get yourself one until it’s free.
Programeter Live Help goes live
More good news for the Programeter users: Programeter introduces the Live chat within the application to stay close to your needs and be there for you in case of urgency.
So from now on, our helping hand is only a click away: encounter some difficulties while working in Programeter? Simply click for Live Help and we will sort it out for you.
Our highly qualified Support team will be happy to help you at short notice. Though note that Live Help is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. (GMT +2). Meanwhile, you are also welcome to contact us any time by writing at help@programeter.com or asking at our Helpdesk. Programeter team is always at your disposal.
So, is your project meeting the deadlines?
For most of us, all deadlines seem vague until they turn out to be in just a few days. That is when all the bustle usually starts. Little time, much work, more bugs to fix, more improvements to make, and all this results in working hard overtime. We at Programeter are against sleepless nights before deadlines and are using iterative development process (Scrum actually) to to get development done at the right time.
One of the relatively new additions of Programeter was designed to help you estimate your chances of meeting the goals of your iteration/sprint, and it is the burn-down chart. It will help you always stay well-informed about how your team’s doing with resolution of their tasks (stories and defects). Combined with the ‘count-down of days’ feature of the Programeter’s quality wallboard, it will keep everyone well-concentrated and motivated to finish the version development on time, if not only in advance.
You may argue why to use Programeter for your burn-down charts when most of agile tools like JIRA, Rally, VersionOne already have those too. Goal of Programeter is to get your software development data by putting together different metrics from a variety of tools you use in your team. So no matter which task or issue management tools your colleagues prefer, even if everyone uses his/her own, Programeter takes into account them all and offers you the aggregated burn-down.
The Programeter application main page is being constantly improved to allow you grasp at once the actual state of your software projects. That is why the burn-down chart on the main page shows you the trends for the unresolved and unverified tasks of your latest version which is currently under development.
The analysis of your previous product versions are available directly on the project page – you can choose the version from the drop-down list, where your project versions are listed in the alphabetic order.
For your convenience, you may watch the statistics either per month, per 3 months, per year, or for the whole duration of the version development. Though we recommend not to do iterations longer than one month. Pointing at the trendline will allow you see the quantity of unresolved or unverified time on the given date.
If you haven’t done so before, try out the Programeter demo, to see how this all works in practice.
Connect your Bugzilla account to Programeter
Programeter keeps on listening to what you say about our product. This time, we are happy to announce another tool connection supported by Programeter - the long-awaited Bugzilla connector.
Bugzilla is a free defect-tracking system with a great number of features, including file/modify defects by email option, database scanning for inconsistencies, and many others.
So if you are one of those who inspired us to enable Programeter-Bugzilla connections, reap your laurels as now we offer Bugzilla users the range of Programeter’s exceptional analysis features and visualization options:
Yes! The Assembla defect connector now in Programeter
The people’s choice! One of latest Programeter innovations is the integration with Assembla.
Assembla offers a bug and issue tracking tool that allows software teams to manage appearing defects and keep track of their resolution progress.
After numerous requests, we decided that integration with Assembla is a must-have for Programeter. In fact, just as well as Programeter is a must-have for Assembla!
So, what is in it for the Assembla users?
Well, now that Assembla can be integrated with Programeter, the teams who use it for their software development can track their quality metrics a lot more thoroughly. For example, one of the most outstanding options that Programeter offers is the ability to see the history of defect finding and resolution activities, which is missing in Assembla. Programeter also allows to visualize these trends basing on the defect-related data from Assembla.
And no matter when your project started, Programeter can even analyze the data you had prior to Programeter deployment.
And what is in it for the whole team?
The teams in which numerous tools are used (e.g. JIRA, FogBugz, Pivotal Tracker, Rally or Unfuddle) can now compile all the data in one dashboard and unify their metrics reporting practices. To remind you, it is now also possible to monitor all the critical information on the Programeter quality wallboard, which is designed to help development teams stay constantly well-informed about how their quality assurance activities are progressing and what is the quality of their products.
Note that in addition to Assembla, Programeter also supports JIRA, FogBugz, Pivotal Tracker, Rally and Unfuddle. And more integrations coming out soon! ;)
To see how easy and pleasing it can be to keep your finger on the pulse of the team’s quality assurance activities, create your Free trial account now, connect Assembla and enjoy the new possibilities that Programeter is happy to offer you.
Ksenia
Why we need development tools app store
Last weeks I have been thinking a lot about ALM and development tools market. There are great some tools that help software teams to build high quality software products. My favorites are JIRA with GreenHopper, GitHub, Rally and our child Programeter. Though, it always felt to me that something is still missing on this market. When choosing tools for our own team we struggle to find the set that is ideally matching all our needs and for some of our requirements we had to build our own tools like www.devPulse.com for example.
I believe it’s a growing adoption of Agile methodologies which is a key driver to changes in our requirements towards development and management tools today. Teams now how have much stronger voice when it comes to picking the tools to run their projects. So requirements are often coming from developers, testers and team leads instead of VP of engineering. It is also very common that different teams in the same company are using different tools.
This all puts a question mark on the ALM idea as it was initially. Goal of ALM vendors was to integrate requirements management, architecture, coding, testing, tracking, and release management under one umbrella. But reality is that big integrated ALM platforms never solved that and most of the software teams, especially efficient small agile teams use bunch of tools provided by different vendors.
ALM tools of today need to change a lot. Evolution is not enough, we need something totally new that would allow whole new set of tools to be developed that are cheaper, easier to install, faster to integrate with each other and simpler to maintain. Yes, I know we have heard those ideas already back in 2006, when Carey Schwaber from Forrester has wrote “The Changing Face Of Application Life-Cycle Management”. But as this problem was never solved, I thought to come out with my idea.
We need something like App Store or Google Apps Marketplace with the focus on new wave of ALM and development tools. I see following characteristics to define this marketplace:
- This platform or marketplace would be neutral from any single ALM tool vendor. Any tool developer, company or individual, should be able to easily add their tools into this marketplace and make money on the sales.
- There would be single account and user management provided by the platform to solve single sign-on issues.
- Platform ideally would be cloud based.
- Each tool should provide a REST API for others to integrate with it.
- Average price for the tool would be around $5/user/month with bunch of simple tools available for free.
Why do I think it can work? Let me bring an example. Atlassian has hosted The Ultimate Wallboard Contest over last 4 weeks. Idea was that teams would submit their wallboard / information radiator solutions (Wallboards are typically dashbards displayed above a development team’s workspace) to compete for the best one. There were almost 100 solutions provided by teams and individual developers. Quality of submissions was so high. Some of those were great, like this one for example. And I didn’t see ALM tool vendors to submit something to this contest. I think you are already getting my point. Yes, ALM tool vendors are not fast enough to solve burning issues of teams that could be easily hacked by some individual developers.
Having this type of platform would influence ALM and development tools market a lot:
- Price of tools would go down as tool vendors would not have to spend so much effort on distribution of their tools
- Individual developers would join the party. It could be a great opportunity for hackers to earn some money by building tools
- It could simplify the installation and therefore decrease the amount of professional services you might need to buy.
I wonder if some stealth startups are thinking about this problem and already working on something like that in their garage. Or probably one of the current tool vendor is moving in to that direction. Would be great to hear about that.
