Improvement Suggestions for a Software Organisation on Developer Time-Tracking and Effort Estimation Practices
Salo, Aaro (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025051511881
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025051511881
Tiivistelmä
The objective of this thesis is to build a proposal for improving the effort estimation and time-tracking practices in the case company in order to improve planning accuracy by aligning hour-reporting and planning practices. In today’s technological society, companies producing software must reach exceeding levels of quality and efficiency and without proper planning of software development this is not possible in complex and grand software projects as seen in telecommunication industry.
The thesis consists of four discrete steps: current state analysis, conceptual framework development, proposal generation and validation. Current state analysis collects and discusses the current state of affairs in the company by analysing the strengths and weaknesses of current processes. Also referred to as Data 1, the information is collected through interviews and analysis of company’s internal documents. In the second step, relevant literature research provides a framework to establish three categories to improve within the company: robust processes, clearly-defined roles and company culture. In the third step, Data 2 is collected through another round of interviews using the previous steps as a baseline. The output is the generation of the initial proposal to improve company processes by combining both company-specific intel and relevant academic literature. Lastly, the validation steps contains the validation of the initial proposal into the final proposal through Data 3 collection, in which the initial proposal is improved upon with relevant company informants.
The concrete output of this thesis is the list of recommendations to improve developer time-tracking and effort evaluation practices. The recommendations contain implementing the proposed process improvements within a certain department of the case company.
The thesis consists of four discrete steps: current state analysis, conceptual framework development, proposal generation and validation. Current state analysis collects and discusses the current state of affairs in the company by analysing the strengths and weaknesses of current processes. Also referred to as Data 1, the information is collected through interviews and analysis of company’s internal documents. In the second step, relevant literature research provides a framework to establish three categories to improve within the company: robust processes, clearly-defined roles and company culture. In the third step, Data 2 is collected through another round of interviews using the previous steps as a baseline. The output is the generation of the initial proposal to improve company processes by combining both company-specific intel and relevant academic literature. Lastly, the validation steps contains the validation of the initial proposal into the final proposal through Data 3 collection, in which the initial proposal is improved upon with relevant company informants.
The concrete output of this thesis is the list of recommendations to improve developer time-tracking and effort evaluation practices. The recommendations contain implementing the proposed process improvements within a certain department of the case company.