Software Measurement
Research Goals
Research in the area of software measurement is focused on establishing a
framework for software measurement, software measures and experimentation. The
following questions, among others, are discussed:
- How can the results of software measurement (products and processes) be
interpreted?
- Is it possible to predict the error-proneness of a system using software
measures from its design phase?
- Is it possible to extract quantitative features from the representation of a
software design to enable us to predict the degree of maintainability of a
software system?
- Are there any quantifiable, key features of the program code of a module that
would enable us to predict the degree of difficulty of testing for that module,
and the number of residual errors in the module after a particular level of
testing has occurred?
- Is it possible to extract quantifiable features from the representation of a
software design to enable us to predict the amount of effort required to build
the software described by that design?
- What properties of software measures are required in order to determine the
quality of a design?
- Are there features in order to predict the size of a project from the
specification phase?
- What are appropriate software measures to underlie the software quality
attributes of the ISO 9126 norm by numbers?
- What are the criteria for the internal and external validation of software measures?
- What are the criteria for prediction models?
- What are common properties of cost estimation models?
- What are the characteristics of object-oriented software measures?
- What are prerequisites for software experiments?
Pfleeger connects measurement, process and product, with process maturity in the following way:
| Process Maturity and Measurement |
|---|
| Maturity | Characteristics | Metrics to Use |
|---|
| Initial | Ad Hoc | Baseline |
| Repeatable | Process Dependent on Individual
 | Project Management |
| Defined | Process Defined, institutionalized
 | Product |
| Managed | Measured Process Process | Process plus feedback for control |
| Optimizing | Improvement feedback to process | Process plus feedback for changing process |
NOTE: The diagrams are based on ICOM models (I-input (left-side), C-control (top), O-output (right-side), M-mechanism (bottom)).
This resembles, and is consistent, with the personal software process philosophy of beginning with collecting baseline data regarding a process in order to understand and begin to impose structure and control.
References
Practical Software Measurement: A Guide to Objective Program Insight. (PDF)
L. Briand, K. El Emam and S. Morasca (1995) On the Application of Measurement Theory in Software Engineering. (PDF)
Pfleeger, S. L. (1996) Integrating Process and Measurement. In A. Melton (ed.), Software Measurement. London: International Thomson Computer Press. p. 53-74.
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To CIS Department at UMass Dartmouth
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or
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This document
Created: July 1, 1996
by RLU
Modified: May 29, 1998