Carol Dekkers

Member for

25 years 2 months

Carol A. Dekkers is President of Quality Plus Technologies, Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in creating peace of mind for companies who want to improve their software processes. Software measurement, software quality, process improvement, requirements, and software sizing (using function point analysis, as an example) are a few of the Quality Plus areas of specialization.

Job Function

Consulting

Industry

Other

Country

United States

Carol Dekkers

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	Assigning Business Values to Software The dominant challenges in software development today include requirements, estimating (cost and effort), and change management. This presentation outlines how measuring the business value of software can be leveraged to contribute to process improvement, process maturity, scope control, and better requirements. In addition, solid recommendations are made to increase the benefits of managing with measurement by using Function Points and other software metrics.
	Venus and Mars in the Workplace In the "Venus and Mars" series of mainstream relationship books, author John Gray attests that differences in outlook and inherited traits account for relationship problems between genders. His position is that men and women come from inherently different places and therefore approach things from inherently different perspectives. In this week's column, Carol Dekkers explores how some of the issues in software development might be similarly rooted in differences between the software development and customer communities.
	Demystifying Function Points A challenge in implementing function point analysis (FPA) is making it understandable to developers, cost analysts, and customers alike. Because function points are based on functional user requirements (what the software does), irrespective of the physical implementation (how the software is implemented), users of the method must think in terms of the logical functional requirements. This article discusses difficulties that arise with developers and clarifies a number of terms that often cause confusion.
	Using "Backfiring" to Accurately Size SoftwareTo make the transition between souce lines of code (SLOC) and function points (FP) easier, a method called "Backfiring" was developed to calculate function points by taking the SLOC count and multiplying it by a static factor based on the dominant software programming language. This article presents the basis for the two measures: Function Points and source lines of code, highlighting their differences and distinct advantages.
	Managing (the Size of) Your Projects This article is an introduction, as well as a refresher, to readers who need to update their knowledge about function points (FPs). It includes many of the concepts presented in my presentation, "Requirements Are (the Size of ) the Problem," at the 1998 Software Technology Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.
	e-Talk Radio: Beck, Kent, 5 December 2000 Ms. Dekkers and Mr. Beck talk about some of the elements of eXtreme Programming, including test first programming, programming in pairs, and stories.
	e-Talk Radio: Highsmith, Jim, 15 March 2001 Ms. Dekkers and Mr. Highsmith talk about adaptive methodologies and agile software development and the importance of the people behind the processes. Mr. Highsmith also introduces the Manifesto created by the Agile Alliance.
	e-Talk Radio: Extreme Programming, 1 February 2001 Carol reviews some of the characteristics of extreme programming (test first, pair programming, user stories, etc.) and talks about where metrics fit into the extreme programming process.
	e-Talk Radio: Paulk, Mark, 28 November 2000 Ms. Dekkers and Mr. Paulk discuss the history of standardized, high maturity processes in the field of software development.