The Incremental Funding Methodology (IFM) is an ROI-informed approach to

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

in which software is developed and delivered in carefully prioritized chunks of customer valued functionality. These chunks are known as Minimum Marketable Features (MMFs). IFM integrates traditional

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

activities with financially informed

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

strategies. IFM heuristics provide clarity into important metrics such as project level NPV, ROI, initial start-up investment costs, and time needed for a project to reach self-funding status. It enables developers, customers, and business stakeholders to answer critical questions related to the development and delivery of a product and to optimize strategies accordingly. In short, IFM equips developers and project managers with techniques and principles for increasing the financial returns of a software project and for identifying development schedules that make a project financially feasible.

See also

Further reading