Making the Business Case for Software Performance Engineering

Shrinking budgets and increased fiscal accountability mean that management needs a sound financial justification before committing funds to software process improvements such as Software Performance Engineering (SPE). Preparing a business case for SPE can demonstrate that the commitment is financially worthwhile and win support for an SPE initiative. This paper presents an introduction to the use of business case analysis to justify investing in SPE to reduce costs due to performance failures. A case study illustrates how to perform a financial analysis and calculate a projected return on investment.