northernSCOPE Success: Ministry of Justice

An interview with mr. Martti Karjalainen, a Senior Specialist in Ministry of Justice.

”Our ICT systems are the backbone of the Finnish judicial system and a significant part of Finnish democracy. ICT services must steadfastly follow the changes and schedules of legislation. By using the estimating methods that are part of northernSCOPE® together with Certified Scope Manager (CSM) services, we are now in control of our costs and able to manage functional outcomes, schedules and quality of software development better. ”

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News archive

Experience®Service is progressing
2013-01-30
We are happy to announce that Experience®Service 4.0 is currently under evaluation by over ten international pilot users. After the evaluation, the final product will be launched on March 4, 2013. More news will follow.

Six more Certified Scope Managers in Finland
2012-11-30
Congratulations to six new Scope Managers who graduated this month! There are now 111 Certified Scope Managers in Finland.

Scope Manager Forum started in Finland
2012-10-01
The critical mass in the number of Scope managers has been reached in Finland. The Scope Manager Forum has been founded evolving about 50% of Scope managers as registered members so far.

The Forum operates as a professional interest group in the Finnish Software Measurement Association (FiSMA). The Forum will strengthen the position of professional scope management and promote applying tools and methods of interest.

The kick-off meeting took place September 25th, 2012.

Total number of Scope Managers is now 127
2012-09-06
In August, 2012, eight new Certified Scope Managers passed their examination in Finland. Congratulations! The total number world-wide is now 127. See the complete list of CSM’s here.

Agreement between 4SUM Partners and MSG Software
2012-05-21
4SUM Partners and MSG Software have signed an agreement on delivery of Experience® Service software. New browser-based service is intended to be published in the beginning of March 2013. Project kick-off was in April, and Proof of Concept will be completed during May for project’s internal use.

Almost one hundred Certified Scope Managers in Finland
2012-02-21
On Feb 16th, seven new Scope Managers passed their examination. Congratulations! Maybe we will reach the pole of 100 Finnish Scope Managers very soon.
And don’t forget the upcoming training in Copenhagen, Denmark. More information here.

Five new Scope Managers graduated
2011-11-29
Our CSM community just grew with five new graduates from Finland. Check the complete list of Certified Scope Managers on our Scope Management page.

Number of Certified Scope Managers is increasing
2011-09-14
In Finland, five new Scope Managers passed their examination in August, 2011. The total number of SM’s is now over one hundred.

Seven new Certified Scope Managers in Germany
2011-06-18
In May 2011, seven new Scope Managers passed the Certified Scope Manager examination in Germany. These CSM’s are:

Armin Dreiling
Oliver Klein
Frank Laskowski
Markus Michels
Andreas Olesh
Michael Otto
Guido Schröder

This means that there are 99 Certified Scope Managers world-wide. Would you like to be number 100?

FiSMA 1.1 will be translated in Finnish
2011-05-06
We proudly announce that ISO/IEC 29881:2010 standard for Functional Size Measurement FiSMA 1.1 will be translated in Finnish.

Webinar by Carol Dekkers
2011-02-02
ITMPI webinar by Carol Dekkers about Navigating the Minefield: Estimating Before Requirements.
February 17, 2011,
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Eastern Time

9 new Certified Scope Managers graduated in Finland
2010-12-10
Nine new Certified Scope Managers graduated in Finland on Dec 3, 2010.
The total number of CSM’s world-wide is now 83.

JRC member Carol Dekkers key-noting at IPMA World Congress
By ECQA 2010-11-10
JRC member Carol Dekkers key-noting at IPMA World Congress, Istanbul, Turkey. “Scope Management is coming: Lead, Follow, or Get out of the Way!”

Service Company

In-house Training

4SUM Partners offers a variety of hands-on, interactive workshops, designed to maximize knowledge transfer of the core scope management competencies.

As part of the Certified Scope Manager training, we provide e.g. following courses:

Introduction to ICT Project Management based on the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) – 3 days
Requirements Specification and Elicitation – 1 day
Practical Project Estimation based on the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) – 1 day
Functional Size Measurement (FSM) – 1 day
FiSMA 1.1 method – 1 day
Experience® Pro for Project Managers – 1 day
Software Acquisition – 1 day

Each of the workshops above can be customized for corporate in-house delivery or as a public course offering. Send an email for further details and pricing options (info(at)4sumpartners.com).

Consulting

4SUM Partners conducts on-site, customised consulting for client companies who want to maintain or gain a competitive advantage by investing in the right technology solutions at the right time based on metrics based project management.

4SUM Partners principles are available to conduct corporate keynote/conference presentations. We have extensive experience delivering keynote presentations for small, medium and large groups throughout the world. Send us email (info(at)4sumpartners.com) to request a formal presentation.

Benchmarking

The 4SUM Partners database contains high quality Experience® data gathered from the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG), and completed client projects. The data have been validated by over 15 universities (details available on request) and represent actual project completions.

Our Vision

We envision future where professional Certified Scope Managers are de facto -standard resources for all important software and systems development programs world-wide supported by a network of northernSCOPE™ Certified Scope Managers and consulting and training partner companies who ...

Company Profile

4SUM Partners Ltd. is a private company established through an MBO from Software Technology Transfer Finland Ltd. in 2007. Our main office is in located in Espoo, Finland with a subsidiary office in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. The place of recidence is Helsinki, Finland.

The core business of 4SUM Partners is consulting, training, and benchmarking, supplemented with products and services based on industry best practices, international standards, northernSCOPE™ management concept, Experience® Pro software, and ...

Our Mission

To contribute to the success of ICT acquirers and suppliers world-wide with mission-critical development programs, supplemented with industry best-practices in measurement, requirements elicitation, scope management and knowledge sharing.

4SUM Partners works with customers who want to succeed with technology programs and projects to improve their business.

We know that scope management solves 6 of the top 8 problems in ICT (information and communications technologies) projects today, and our business is dedicated to providing products and services to make every program and project succeed - through concrete and realistic scope management.

January/February, 2010

CrossTalk, The Journal of Defense Software Engingeering:

(Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies, and Pekka Forselius)

The information and communications technology (ICT) world is "addicted" to dysfunctional behaviour and the problem is spreading globally. The sad truth is that the parties in the ICT relationship (the customer and the supplier) are largely codependent on a pattern of dysfunction characterized by ineffective communication, fixed price contracts with changing requirements, and eroding trust. This article focuses specifically on the northernSCOPE™ 12-step process for ICT program recovery.

Achieving Olympic Success on Software Projects with Scope Management

September, 2009

SoftwareTech News:

(Carol Dekkers, Quality Plus Technologies)

Analogous approaches from other industries often provide illumination of key concepts to benefit software intensive systems projects. The latter are some of the most complex, monolithic, and costly of all project management challenges today, not only because of technology novelty but because of the sheer amount of focused customer and developer communication that must occur.

An Information Systems Design Product Theory for Software Project Estimation and Measurement Systems

January, 2009

(Pekka Forselius, and Timo Käkölä, University of Jyväskylä)

There is relatively little research on software Project Estimation and Measurement Systems (PEMS). Commercial PEMS vary in functionality and effectiveness. Their intended users thus do not know what to expect from PEMS and how to evaluate them. This paper creates an information system design product theory for the class of PEMS that prescribes the meta-requirements, the meta-design, and applicable theories for all products within the class. Meta-requirements and the meta-design are derived from the project estimation and measurement literature, experiences obtained during more than ten years of empirical work in Finnish Software Measurement Association, and a commercially available PEMS.