APM helps IT managers to make better decisions about application changes, competence needs and other productivity issues. APM is based on a set of metrics from different tools that system developers use
in their daily work:
Tool |
Description |
Metric |
|
Errand and Workflow Management |
This type of tool handles the workflow for a project or an IT management team. It is a list of change requests, questions and to-dos. This tool is used to keep track of who do what when and how much time is spent on each task.
Small teams might be managed in Excel documents, larger teams and departments have accustomed applications or purchased tools to manage the workflow.
|
What metric is available depends on tool and extent of use. Here are some key metrics of interest:
- Frequency of change per
application over time
- Time spent (cost) per task
and application over time
|
|
Application Mining |
See What is it? |
If the Application Mining tool has an open database that allows writing own reports or programs, there is a lot of metrics to get. Here are some key metrics of interest:
- Function Points per application over time, for example Mark II Function Points (ISO20968)
- Complexity per application
over time, for example
McCabe Complexity Measure. |
|
|
|
The function of the APM tool is to retrieve the metrics and show them to IT managers in different views. The views together are the APM Dashboard.
It is possible to create a basic APM tool in Excel and use some VBA-macros to retrieve the metrics from your Errand and Workflow Management tool and from the Application Mining tool. ResourceMiner has an open database that can be accessed from within Excel or any program of choice.
Upcoming releases of ResourceMiner will include SQL Reports for Complexity metrics and also a template for an APM Dashboard in Excel.
For deep understanding of the benefits, why's and how's of measuring IT productivity please read SWEBOOK from IEEE Computer Society Professional Practices Commitee.
Useful links
For ResourceMiner users not willing to wait for APM-support, here are some links to help developing own Function Points reports:
Function Points Analysis - IFPUG (ISO 20926)
Function Points Analysis - NESMA (ISO 24570)
Mark II Function Points (ISO 20968)COSMIC Full Function Points (ISO 19761)
Questions
Your APM Dashboard should be able to answer those questions:
- Do we (over time) increase or decrease our productivity - all over and per managed object? (Productivity is cost divided with amount of changed/added/deleted LOC, SLOC or FP)
- Do we (over time) increase or decrease the complexity - all over and per managed object?
- What Applications/Objects need most activity? (Actions taken on this can be rewriting this part of the application to save time on upcoming changes)
The most costly applications should have highest complexity or the highest change frequency.
APM can take you up to level 5 in the CMM model.