Reducing the costs of software development is really pretty simple.  (I didn’t say easy, but rather, simple.) Using a development maturity assessment it has been done repeatedly. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Software Development Maturity Assessment Methodology is used to assess the software development capability of organizations.  Research by Lawrence Putnam of Quantitative Software Management (QSM) demonstrates a strong relationship between Capability Maturity Model (CMM) maturity level and the QSM ‘Productivity Index’ (PI).  Specifically, rising CMM levels result in higher Productivity Indices, which result in lower development costs.