Interview with Mauro POLLI, Head of Enterprise Architecture & ADM Transformation, BNP Paribas Personal Finance
Interview with Mauro POLLI, Head of Enterprise Architecture & ADM Transformation, BNP Paribas Personal Finance
Since 2015, BNP Paribas Personal Finance has been rolling out a plan to industrialize its IT practices. As part of this, the Function Point metric has been chosen to assess the size of IT developments and applications. Function Points are currently used to estimate project workloads, measure productivity, and measure assets. The current measurements make it possible to challenge suppliers and measure the Function Point cost of each project.
The Function Point metric helps drive BNP Paribas Personal Finance's software publishing activity, with performance indicators such as Function Point cost and velocity. The deployment of this metric enables the development and management of performance improvement strategies based on common benchmarks, regardless of the technologies and methodologies used (agile or V-model).
Function Point measurement must be integrated into the overall IT management strategy. To implement Function Points, project managers and IT management should be involved in the process. It is essential that these stakeholders understand the value of Function Points or SNAP IFPUG Points and how they can help with operational tasks such as estimation, functional scope control, and productivity assessment.
Interview with Dominique Joussaïn, Ministry of Agriculture
The IT Department of the Ministry of Agriculture uses Function Points to manage its purchases of development services within the framework of public procurement. The function point, a standardized unit of account, is used within the Ministry as a purchasing unit.
Unlike intuitive and empirical expert approaches, the international Function Point method allows the functional scope of a project or application to be measured in a repeatable and enforceable manner. This method is an excellent supplier management tool. The functional nomenclature resulting from the rating constitutes a comprehensive and exhaustive commitment by the stakeholders to the project to be carried out.
In addition, implementing Function Points reinforces the project manager's focus on mastering functional data as a key factor in the success of a project.
Based on our feedback, here are three recommendations:
Include project managers in the process; they should be the primary beneficiaries of this method.
Communicate simply about Function Points so that everyone understands the concept and can use it appropriately.
Involve Function Point assessors in the uses that the organization expects from the metric for continuous improvement of the measurement process.
Interview with Jean-Pierre SCAPPATICCI, SNCF - Group CIO - Deputy Director of Strategy and IT Governance
All our projects worth more than €3 million (Build + 5 years of Run) are submitted to a project validation committee, providing in particular a functional point measurement and an estimate of the implementation workload.
Since late 2017, we have developed a complementary approach based on function points, incorporating concepts such as utility and business value.
Other uses on demand: measuring the progress of an agile project, measuring the performance of a project and its subcontracting, measuring the functional drift of a project.
The advantage of these methods is that they help projects develop and validate their business model by objectifying their estimates. These methodically supported estimates make it easier to justify project commitments and negotiate subcontracts.
Our complementary approach also allows us to: focus projects from the outset on their essential functions with greater added value (e.g., prioritization of the backlog); produce a functional map by business profile to supplement the IS urban planning reference systems; estimate user productivity gains; formalize a usage map; and assist with change management, training, and deployment.
During the initial years of PF deployment in your organization: