A Measurement Model Based On Goal-driven Process

LAI Xufang (Computer Applied Technology) Directed by Professor WANG Qing The production of quality software on time and within budget has been a major concern of software industry for several decades. Applying systematic approaches in software development to control the development process can help produce product effectively and efficiently. And it is clear that organizations can best pursue systematic process improvement by integrating measurement and process. Despite significant progress in recent years, implementing a successful measurement program for software development is still a challenge. Most problems are not of theoretical issue but of methodology or practice, such as how to develop an effective metric program. In this paper, a goal-driven software process metric model, P-GQIM, is constructed, where P stands for process and GQIM stands for Goal-Question-Indicator-Measure. It is an approach based on Goal Question Metric Paradigm. GQM is a widely used goal-driven approach for metric definition. But GQM has also some limitations, such as from the same organization, and starting with the same goals, different sets of questions and metrics may be arrived at; some of the questions that result from a GQM execution cannot be answered unless an organization changes the way of doing business to make the necessary metrics available. To avoid the shortcomings in GQM, we developed the P-GQIM process metric model that combines software process modeling with goal-driven metric model. P-GQIM consists of 5 parts: process modeling, GQIM plan development, data collection, metric and analysis, and process improvement. Finally, an example of applying P-GQIM is given in developing a metric program for the Software Configuration Management KPA of CMM 1.1.