The Effects of the Business Model on Object-Oriented Software Development Productivity

As software development cycles shorten, and software markets become more competitive, improved software development productivity continues to be a major concern in the software industry. Many believe that object-oriented technology provides a breakthrough solution to this problem, but there is little quantitative evidence for this belief. Furthermore, most studies related to object-oriented productivity do not consider it in conjunction with the business constraints under which the software is developed. Business models tend to focus on cost and calendar events and tend to form deadlines that are governed by marketing windows and pressures. In this paper we explore the relationship between the business model and the productivity that a software development methodology can achieve in a commercial environment. We first examine empirical data from several commercial products developed under the same business model and an iterative software development process. The results indicate that lack of incentives for early completion of intermediate project tasks, and a rigorous enforcement of final project deadlines, may trigger Parkinson's Law delays and negatively affect software development productivity, especially when projects are developed using object-oriented methods. We then model and simulate the impact of software task completion incentives and imposed deadlines on productivity that might be expected from potentially high-productivity technology, such as object-orientation. We show how and why some common business practices might lower project productivity and project completion probability. We also discuss to what extent poor software process control and/or use of immature technology compounds the problem.