An empirical analysis of software productivity over time

OBJECTIVE - the aim is to investigate how software project productivity has changed over time. Within this overall goal we also compare productivity between different business sectors and seek to identify major drivers. METHOD - we analysed a data set of more than 600 projects that have been collected from a number of Finnish companies since 1978. RESULTS - overall, we observed a quite pronounced improvement in productivity over the entire time period, though, this improvement is less marked since the 1990s. However the trend is not smooth. We also observed productivity variability between company and business sector CONCLUSIONS - whilst this data set is not a random sample so generalisation is somewhat problematic, we hope that it contributes to an overall body of knowledge about software productivity and thereby facilitates the construction of a bigger picture.