SLI, a New Metric to determine Success of a Software Project

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Success Level Index (SLI), a new metric for assessing project success in software development, based on empirical analysis of project resources and outcomes in a CMMI Level 5 company.

Contribution

The paper presents the SLI metric as a novel qualitative measure to evaluate and guide software project success and organizational maturity.

Findings

SLI value correlates with project success levels

Resource factors significantly impact SLI scores

SLI provides a maturity indicator for organizations

Abstract

Project Management process plays a critical role in managing factors such as cost, time, technology and personnel towards achieving the success of a project and henceforth the sustainability of the company in the industrial market. This paper emphasizes empirical study of several projects developed over a period of time in a product and service based CMMI Level 5 Software Company. The investigation shows impact analysis of resources such as cost, time, and number of developers towards the successful completion of the project as allocated by the project manager during the developmental process. The analysis has further led to the introduction of a new qualitative metric, Success Level Index Metric (SLI) whose index value varies from 0 to 1. SLI acts as a maturity indicator that indicates the degree of maturity of the company in terms of success of their projects based on which the company can choose their desired level of success for their projects.