PG WEEKXAPPLICATION DEVELOPMENT MARCH 19, 1990 Inn rruyrat EO JEM z di REJ .. Ina healthy RAD development shop, , there is a conscious management effort | to lower turnover rates. An important function of manage- 4. ment in a RAD organization is to ensure V| that developers are excited about their jobs. By giving therm encouragement, re- wards, stimulation and pleasant work- — ing conditions, they have pride in what they do. Some IS organizations treat analysts and programmers as disposable parts. , As a result, these employees lack a sense of loyalty and have no feeling of long-term involvement in the job. They benefits of inno- vative applica- - tions-develop- believe that the route to high salaries is ment methodolo- through job-hopping. gies such as RAD is the ability to increase productivity and reduce turn: ' ' over of development personnel. de When key developers leave, productiv: ity is harmed. In a typical organization |' with about 50 professionals, the recruit: ment of a new, skilled developer is like- ;' ly to cost two months" salary, and repli- . cating the previous developer's skill lev:' el takes about three months. Training... costs and moving costs must also be tak-. en into account. | a ja oz are In all, a turnover of 20 percent in the "' organization costs about $150,000 annu-'' ally. This is just the cost reported by ac" countants; the real cost is much higher!" because development productivity , < "The figure shows the impact of turn:; over in a well-organized development ''' shop that uses a traditional develop- ment life cycle with productivity tools k and fourth-generation languages. The or- ganization spent about $3 million per '',, year on this development; the difference " between the development costs with " . high turnover (11.6 function points per" person-month) and those with low turn: over (19.3 function points per person... month) was about $1 million annually. : The hidden costs were even higher be- (A ty (Measured in function points" per person per month) H — — ; E im » p tunelom FE. com eh see their effect, as is the case in RAD... projects. Morale is often lowest on long, drawn-out traditional life cycles where a target delivery date is not achievable. : : High turnover on such projects worsens . a bad situation. | na rea | There is less of a chance that develop- ' - ers with a three-month life cycle will... leave in mid-project than will those " K with a two-year life cycle. Members of a, a ii ; J š i In such an environment, turnover en-' guickly, management; believes it is not a very high turnover. Tom VA RAD organization makes tur TE! NE say the typical turnover figures they en- ' together. It has a Counter range from 33 percent to 80,"'//"! path that allows the most proficient a o MINO IEEEENA - doumiii Personnel Turnover Jeopardizes Productivity Development Statistics for 41 Projects Over a Five-Year Period at Du Pont Fibers Department, Wilmington, Del. a H lines hiyii ar polate unetjon pol? lo uivalent tea plexiti ot > Rapid-applications development relies on -, | integrated tool sets coupled with management technigues | designed to motivale members of the development team. genders turnover, Because people leave. |, easily understand and modify someone a, : right people. structured design. A new developer can Next week I will discuss the manage- V. else's design, since the design is highly RES zem ' s e desi tion. 8 le OJ ena nev on karin Mei graphical, easy to understand and easy a enu: esa pena om A resul! o orkan sabeje Jed dia, ote modify.- The concepts embodied in RAD are de- [ team Hren aa DAME kh , culty lu odesina tegra! (meni PU A en ope for a superb pro- scribed tn a new volume in the James | probe i ppoint ple seti sonet Bi , gramm something highly com- Martin Report Series. For more infor- plex and difficult to understand; some gi uže telkiko therefore, se not want to h tends to contact (in the Uni b | men j ble k have level ne ec To lan a (in the United. States and Can K eloprment teams irof keeps teams, average de- Some IS organizations, Neveeva, have that h m Pa mona develop veloper, but not 10 times better. Most in- 90402 (213) 394-8305. In Europe, con- percent per year, with average employ' /,. team members to rise to high salaries. It ' ; longevity HR RADA ČE JI E ma should recruit developers who expect to ' ovative Management, Technigues Increase Productivity If programming is an art, ICASE de- velopment is an engineering discipline. Programming reguires the handerafting of code one line at a time. ICASE tools, however, produce code automatically from graphical design specifications. The art and creativity in CASE de- velopment is not in devising code struc- tures but in thinking about how to im- prove the world of the user, sometimes fundamentally restructuring how infor- mation is handled. This rethinking of procedures reguires intelligent designers. The RAD methodology, however, does not reguire genius-level programmers. Instead, it relies on high-end, integrated tool sets coupled with management technigues designed to motivate mem- bers of the development team. Key de- velopment personnel should be inten- | sively trained to use the best available | tools and organized into small teams | that can move with speed. People who are resistant to change | should be avoided. Often the most pro- ductive programmers using older tech- nologies are the most, resistant to the changes introduced by new life-cycle processes such as RAD. These people may be skilled in coding . with COBOL or PL/I, or they may have become acrobats using older productivi- ty-enhancement tools, such as ones that | facilitate the generation of Customer In- . E formation Control System (CICS) trans- actions. But they often feel threatened by new, unfamiliar technology. They do not see how new technigues can enhance their job security and do not. want to take the risk of learning new technology. The Right Choice Individuals who adapt readily to the RAD life-cycle process are excited by the technology and strive for accom- plishment. They intuitively recognize the advantages—both to themselves and to the business—of efficient, development tools and small, highly motivated devel- opment teams. They are eager to learn the new technigues and are willing to work hard in return for recognition and a sense of accomplishment. The RAD life cycle is highly depen- dent on the guality of the joint applica- tions design leader and the members of the construction team. These individuals must be chosen with care. While train- ing is a very important part of develop- ing the reguisite skills for a job, as with a sports team, you can't train just any: one to be a winner. You must select; the stay and should make them feel that they are a special part of the organiza- tion. A good programmer can create three times as much bug:free code as the aver- age programmer—and a "genius" pro- grammer creates 10 times as much. 'The amount of code created by the least skilled programmer is much less than the amount created by an average programmer. The good programmer also often creates far more elegant program designs than the average programmer; the worst programmers make an unholy mess. I-CASE tools change this situation, however, because they enforce well: | ossali rage pi (155 TJ č VO roje surveje"" ko Medium gasvring gay o!m bero! ode, Isa ke num rson € 4 an develop č iN dob Avakian giii high-end, | mation on this volume, call (800) 242- 1240. For information on seminars, ada) Tech: Transfer Institute, 741 10th St, Santa Monica, Calif. can become tact Savant, 2 New St., Carnforth, skilled with I-CASE tools and usually La: LA5 9BX United Kingdom find them fun to use. (0524) 734 505.