Value-based software engineering

TLDR

The Value‑Based Software Engineering agenda aims to integrate value considerations into software engineering principles and practices, developing a framework that reinforces them, while noting that Earned Value Management is useful for cost, schedule, and progress monitoring but ignores stakeholder value. This paper presents a case study of VBSE practices, focusing on the anomaly of the Earned Value Management System. The authors model an order‑processing project and apply Benefits Realization Analysis, stakeholder‑value proposition elicitation and reconciliation, and business case analysis to create a stakeholder‑earned‑value monitoring and control framework. The approach demonstrates that integrating these analyses yields a practical framework for monitoring and controlling stakeholder value in software projects.

Abstract

The Value-Based Software Engineering (VBSE) agenda described in the preceding article has the objectives of integrating value considerations into current and emerging software engineering principles and practices, and of developing an overall framework in which they compatibly reinforce each other. In this paper, we provide a case study illustrating some of the key VBSE practices, and focusing on a particular anomaly in the monitoring and control area: the "Earned Value Management System." This is a most useful technique for monitoring and controlling the cost, schedule, and progress of a complex project. But it has absolutely nothing to say about the stakeholder value of the system being developed. The paper introduces an example order-processing software project, and shows how the use of Benefits Realization Analysis, stake-holder value proposition elicitation and reconciliation, and business case analysis provides a framework for stakeholder-earned-value monitoring and control.