Practical Software Metrics for Project Management and Process Improvement
by Robert B. Grady
Robert B. Grady's Practical Software Metrics for Project Management and Process Improvement (1992) is the successor to the 1987 book Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-Wide Program, by R. Grady and D. Caswell. The earlier book described Hewlett-Packard's (HP) effort to establish a company-wide software metrics program. Grady's newer book reflects HP's more recent experiences, without requiring familiarity with the earlier book.
Grady succeeds in maintaining a practical orientation in this new book. He draws on a wide range of software measurement technology, including the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Process Maturity Model; Victor Basili's Goals-Questions-Metrics paradigm; life cycle cost, schedule, and failure data; Functionality, Usability, Reliability, Performance, Supportability (FURPS+) metrics (HP's variation on the Rome Laboratory Software Quality Framework); formal inspections; design, code complexity, and test coverage metrics; software reliability models; Pareto analysis, and Ishikawa (fishbone) diagrams, yet he never gets lost in the technical details of these many technologies. Numerous illustrations present the metrics via actual data in a manner useful to a manager or software engineer.
This book is organized around two major parts. The first part, "The Tactical Application of Software Metrics -- Project Management," describes the use of metrics on a single software project. The second part, "The Strategical Application of Software Metrics -- Process Improvement," describes the use of metrics across projects within an organization. Metrics for project management are organized around three main goals: maximizing customer satisfaction, minimizing engineering effort and schedule, and minimizing defects. Chapters are also devoted to using metrics in managing quality and testing and in engineering decisions.
In addition, the second part of the book focuses on organizational goals across projects. Practical advice is provided for using metrics for process improvements. Grady shows how metrics can be used to summarize the health of an organization in a manner that managers at the highest levels can understand with practice. One interesting chapter contains a variety of examples showing Return on Investment (ROI) for justifying changes in software development and maintenance methods. According to Grady, HP employees now provide quantitative data when asking for new tools and techniques. With this quantitative data, metrics have become an effective technology transfer mechanism.
The reader is cautioned not to attempt to apply the results as illustrated. Although some results may apply, such as the cost effectiveness of formal inspections, these examples reflect HP's environment. The intent of the book is to describe how to conduct a metrics program, not to focus on any specific results. For example, a successful metrics program must be designed to address the specific needs of the target organization's engineers, project managers, and high level managers.
This 270-page book is available from P T R Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 (ISBN 0-13-720384-5) for $39.