Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • Article
  • Journal of Modern Project Management

Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architecture: A Power Utility Case

By: Robert Lagerström, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Alan MacCormack
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

In this paper, we test a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) based method for visualizing and measuring software portfolio architectures. Our data is drawn from a power utility company, comprising 192 software applications with 614 dependencies between them. We show that the architecture of this system can be classified as a “core-periphery” system, meaning it contains a single large dominant cluster of interconnected components (the “Core”) representing 40% of the system. The system has a propagation cost of 44% and architecture flow through of 93%. This case and these findings add another piece of the puzzle suggesting that the method could be effective in uncovering the hidden structure in software portfolio architectures.

Keywords

Applications and Software; Infrastructure; Utilities Industry

Citation

Lagerström, Robert, Carliss Y. Baldwin, and Alan MacCormack. "Visualizing and Measuring Software Portfolio Architecture: A Power Utility Case." Special Issue on DSM Conference 2014. Journal of Modern Project Management 3, no. 2 (September–December 2015): 114–121.
  • Purchase

About The Authors

Carliss Y. Baldwin

→More Publications

Alan D. MacCormack

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • November–December 2022
    • Harvard Business Review

    Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.

    By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau
    • June 2022
    • Faculty Research

    FIELD Immersion 2022: Salt Lake City, Utah

    By: Alan MacCormack and Kerry Herman
    • 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2

    By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland
More from the Authors
  • Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now. By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau
  • FIELD Immersion 2022: Salt Lake City, Utah By: Alan MacCormack and Kerry Herman
  • Computer-Implemented Methods and Systems for Measuring, Estimating, and Managing Economic Outcomes and Technical Debt in Software Systems and Projects: US Patent 11,126,427 B2 By: Daniel J. Sturtevant, Carliss Baldwin, Alan MacCormack, Sunny Ahn and Sean Gilliland
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College