Comments on: Software Capitalization in Atlanta

By: Michael Gentle

Michael Gentle — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:59:13 +0000

Hi Israel,

Capex vs opex for Agile and iterative dev is a subject dear to my heart (right next to the scar tissue …). Do you know if any progress has been made in the Agile community on this, either formally (eg a working group) or informally (someone coming up with proposals in a public forum)?

Thanks,
Michael Gentle

By: israelgat

israelgat — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:34:04 +0000

I don’t know that there is a black or white answer to this question, Babu. Much depends on the flexibility (or lack thereof) of the company’s auditor. A critically important factor is how well the CFO stands up to pressure from the auditor.

Israel

By: Babu Muralidharan

Babu Muralidharan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:03:12 +0000

An employee allocated to a project, but has been idle for 20% of his or her time. Can the salary paid on these idle hours be capitalized under SFAS86.

By: Q3 Agile Success Tour: Boston, Seattle, Chicago and London « The Agile Executive

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:09:55 +0000

[...] a comment » Various posts in this blog (click, for example, here, here, and here) brought up noteworthy threads from the Q2 Rally Agile Success Tours events in Santa [...]

By: From ad hoc to Agile « The Agile Executive

From ad hoc to Agile « The Agile Executive — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:46:19 +0000

[...] a comment » Darren Shipp made an astute observation during the recent Agile Success Tour event in Atlanta: The problem is not transitioning from Waterfall to Agile. The real problem is transitioning from ad [...]

By: Israel Gat

Israel Gat — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:48:37 +0000

Click http://tr.im/qUy8 for additional comments by Nate on the Atlanta event.

Israel

By: Israel Gat

Israel Gat — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:43:36 +0000

See http://tr.im/qUxb for additional coverage of the Atlanta event by Nate Skinner.

Israel

By: Agile Considerations for CXOs « The Agile Executive

Agile Considerations for CXOs « The Agile Executive — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:45:55 +0000

[...] Capitalization of (Agile) software [...]

By: Israel Gat

Israel Gat — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:37:13 +0000

Todd, I think you put your finger on an extremely important issue – capitalization in the context of software evolution. Best I know we don’t have
a broadly accepted definition what “new” is for evolving software.

This is huge – the cost of evolving (and maintaining) software trumps the cost of “pure” development.

Israel

By: Todd Olson

Todd Olson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:59:27 +0000

Israel,

I agree this can be a huge issue. Actually in my experience, I’ve seen a few issues. First, what type of work can be capitalized? In the past, I’ve capitalized new products and major new features. Maintenance is often excluded. The challenge, however, with Agile teams is making this distinction when Quality ( aka defects ) is baked into the process and backlog. Simply capitalizing stories ( and not defects ) is often not an accurate representation.

The second issue is getting accurate data. This is both a tooling and a process issue. I remember speaking with a software executive last year that had a multi-million fine from the IRS because they had almost no record of the time they capitalized.

It’s for this very reason that Rally just released the Beta of a new Time Tracking capability. Our theory is that if developers can easily enter their time while they’re updating their task status and work remaining that it will be inculcated in their daily routine. No developer wants to be bothered with time entry, so it needs to be light and easy.

The fact is that many Software executives cannot simply ignore governance or “business” issues. We’re spending lots of time figuring how to meet those requirements while balancing the empowerment that Agile teams need to achieve success.

-Todd