Software labor cost control

Software development project labor cost control process design and application

1. Current situation and existing problems of labor cost management in domestic software development projects

Project costs include direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs include direct labor costs, hardware and software procurement costs, travel expenses and other direct expenses. Indirect costs include overhead sharing, etc. Labor costs account for a high proportion of software development projects, and it is of great significance to manage labor costs well. The labor cost is equal to the labor time input multiplied by the unit price of the personnel. The management of labor costs can be simplified as the management of working hours.

Labor cost management includes two aspects. On the one hand, it is necessary to estimate accurately and establish a reasonable cost benchmark; on the other hand, it is necessary to control cost input so that the actual cost is controlled within the cost benchmark. At present, the domestic IT industry is not very mature in these two aspects, and the existing problems mainly include the following aspects.

1.1 There is no unified estimation standard, and the estimation results have large deviations

The entire software industry lacks scientific estimation methods and estimation standards for a long time, and the problem of cost quota calculation has not been well resolved, resulting in frequent malicious bidding in software development project bidding activities, which has become an obstacle to the further development of the software industry . In order to solve the urgent needs of the industry, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially initiated the formulation of the "Software R&D Cost Measurement Specification" in 2010, which will be released as the national electronics industry standard. This standard measures the scale of software functions with the rapid function point method, estimates the software workload, and determines the software development cost.

Although industry standards are about to be released, many companies still make estimates based on personal experience because they do not understand the content of the standards and do not master the estimation methods, and the estimation results vary widely.

In the contract signing or bidding stage, even if the user puts forward clear software development project requirements, different suppliers adopt different estimation methods, consider different estimation factors, and produce different estimation results, resulting in huge differences in the estimated cost of the same project. Since there is no uniform standard, as Party A, in the face of vastly different contract quotations, it is difficult to judge which supplier's estimation results and quotations are close to objective facts and reasonable, and which supplier is driving up prices or viciously competing? As Party B, inaccurate estimates often lead to high profits in the budget stage, but it is found that the actual profits are very low or even a loss in the final settlement. Estimates are not allowed to cause harm to both parties of Party A and Party B.

Project labor cost benchmarks based on inaccurate estimates are also inaccurate. The lack of scientific benchmarks leads to the lack of seriousness in the implementation of project labor cost management from the source.

1.2 Extensive management, only labor cost statistics, but insufficient analysis and control

Under normal circumstances, all IT companies count the working hours invested in software development projects, and use the statistical working hours as reference data for project labor cost budget and final accounts. However, many companies only do statistics, do not do analysis and control, or the analysis and control are weak . There are several reasons for this phenomenon.

First of all, the problem of ideological understanding, that is, the lack of work motivation for man-hour analysis and control. Due to inaccurate estimates, everyone believes that the man-hour benchmark can be changed in the later stage, and it is not meaningful to analyze and control man-hours. It is enough to count the actual investment.

Secondly, the management of many enterprises is not lean enough. Lean project management requires cost, and it is also a reflection of the level of management ability. For example, in theory, in the process of project execution, earned value analysis should be carried out, attention should be paid to the cost performance index, and when a deviation occurs, the cause should be analyzed immediately and corrected. However, to really do it, it is necessary to establish an earned value analysis model, formulate relevant system requirements, and equip management personnel.

Third, the informatization support is not enough. If there is no support from informatization means, statistical analysis of man-hours is only done manually, which has low efficiency, high cost, and poor accuracy. Even with lean management ideas and requirements, it is difficult to implement at the operational level.

2. Solutions for software development labor cost management

Aiming at the problems existing in the labor cost management of software development projects, the main solution is to learn and master advanced estimation methods, conduct scientific estimation according to the industry estimation standards to be promulgated, control labor cost benchmarks from the source, and on this basis Design the control process, set clear control points in each link, and ensure the implementation of management ideas through the information system. details as follows:

(1) Track industry standards, master standard content, apply standards in actual estimation operations, and form a corporate culture that values estimation and respects science. Estimating according to the standard will make the labor cost estimation more accurate, and completely solve the problem of the inconsistency of the software development labor cost calculation caliber between Party A and Party B.

(2) Introduce lean management methods to strengthen cost analysis and control during project execution. Cost management is not to wait for the end of the project to analyze, but to analyze the cost performance index CPI every week, and conduct matching analysis with the schedule performance index SPI, and pay attention to the use of labor costs in real time. At the end of the project, it is necessary to count and count the software scale again, and calculate the productivity of the enterprise according to the actual labor hours, which is used to guide the labor cost estimation process of the new project.

(3) Put forward labor cost management requirements, develop information systems, and solidify and continuously optimize management ideas and processes through information systems. Only through the linkage of project budget, project plan, work task package, actual reported work log hours, project progress performance index, project cost performance index, etc., can the labor cost control be efficient, accurate and transparent.

3. Software development labor cost control process design

(1) From the pre-sales stage of the project, control the estimation and budget. Set up a special post to review the cost of working hours. For software development projects, you can use the quick function point method, or the analogy/analogy method, or the Delphi method. The working hour specialist conducts the audit according to the audit checklist prepared in advance. The review focuses on the standardization of the estimation and budget process and the rationality of the selection of relevant parameters.

(2) The budget table is imported into the project management system, and milestones are automatically formed as the basis for follow-up control.

(3) Import the project plan into the system, or directly split the work package in the system to form the work plan of the project team members.

(4) The project team members fill in the working hours in the system, and the system automatically generates various statistical data reports related to working hours, such as SPI, CPI, completion rate, personnel utilization rate, and personnel output rate.

(5) QA of the project management office regularly analyzes the causes of abnormal data, finds existing problems or risks, and formulates improvement measures together with the project team.

(6) The company manages the causes of abnormal data, problem risks, etc., and continuously improves them to form a measurement library and corresponding data baselines, which will be used as a reference for estimating labor costs in subsequent projects, making labor cost control more scientific and more accurate. lean.

4. The main requirements and technical realization of the software project management system

4.1 Main requirements of the software project

(1) Budget table import: implement different budget templates for different contract types according to the company's project budget system. The first-level summary is directly formed after the budget table is imported. The various milestones of the project, the start date of the milestone, the end date, the workload, etc. are all automatically formed. The first-level summary imported from the budget table can only be manually modified by QA. If the budget table is changed, it shall be manually revised by QA.

(2) Project plan import: When the project plan is imported into the project management system, the specific requirements are: the title in the plan generates a summary, and the responsible person is automatically set as the project manager; the specific tasks in the plan generate work packages, and the resources in the tasks correspond to Work package resource; if it is a virtual person in the plan, it will default to the project manager when imported into the system; the first-level summary generated by the budget table cannot be modified.

4.2 Implementation of soft design technology

The labor cost control method is expanded and implemented on the basis of the original working hours reporting system. Using Microsoft.NET platform, B/S mode, the database is SQLserver2000. The system realizes excel import and export; project import and export and other functions.

Summarize

From tracking industry standards, estimating according to standards, independent review by working hours specialists, reporting working hours through the system, to regular analysis by SPICPI, publishing productivity baselines and improvement goals, effective labor cost control is carried out from all aspects. This method realizes software development. The goal of project labor cost control helps organizations improve project management capabilities and profitability.

The above is the design and application of labor cost control process for software development projects introduced by Shenzhen Zuchuang Microelectronics Co., Ltd. If you have software and hardware function development needs for smart electronic products, you can rest assured to entrust them to us. We have rich experience in customized development of electronic products, and can evaluate the development cycle and IC price as soon as possible, and can also calculate PCBA quotations. We are a number of chip agents at home and abroad: Songhan, Yingguang, Jieli, Ankai, Quanzhi, realtek, with MCU, voice IC, Bluetooth IC and module, wifi module. We have hardware design and software development capabilities. Covering circuit design, PCB design, single-chip microcomputer development, software custom development, APP custom development, WeChat official account development, voice recognition technology, Bluetooth wifi development, etc. It can also undertake the research and development of smart electronic products, the design of household appliances, the development of beauty equipment, the development of Internet of Things applications, the design of smart home solutions, the development of TWS earphones, the development of Bluetooth earphone speakers, the development of children's toys, and the research and development of electronic education products.