Financial Measuring of Incremental Deliveries in Software Projects - Finding a Model That Can Answer: How Much is Worth to Split a Project into Iterations?

Abstract

In this article, it is presented a mathematical model for the additional financial value generated in software projects, as a function of the number of incremental deliveries during the project. Based on this model, it was presented the theoretical asymptotic limit, for infinite deliveries during the project. This practice is called Continuous Deployment (CD), already used by many companies such as Google and Facebook. As financial evaluation measuring, it was used the Net Present Value (NPV). It was also measured how the use of incremental deliveries can create additional NPV for software projects which have short duration (maximum of six months), median duration (one year) and long duration (two years). At the end, it is argued that this additional value can be strategic for maintaining a sustainable portfolio of innovation projects.