BIRF: Keeping Software Development under Control across the Organization

Many organizations have to manage an increasingly large number of software projects. In many cases, these projects are outsourced to different companies or developed across several departments. This creates a problem because it is increasingly difficult for a project manager, responsible for several projects, to have an accurate view of all activities underway, being able to act proactively before problems occur. In this paper we present an approach and corresponding implementation for effectively tracking and managing multiple projects across an organization, offering an integrated view of the state of projects being implemented. This approach allows to effectively monitoring risks, progress, budget, deliveries, and other critical aspects, allowing responding in real-time. The system was implemented for the European Space Agency, being now successfully used in a number of projects. This paper also presents an accurate view on how software development and tracking takes place in the scope of mission-critical systems.