Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
flow, teams are able to improve efficiency and, hence, reduce the time and cost
required to complete the project.
Similarly, maintaining the quality at which the project is completed is a useful
result of project metrics. Continuous maintenance of quality can to ensure the
absence of major flaws down the road that may require large amounts of time and
effort to ameliorate. Much like schedule maintenance, monitoring quality will
ultimately save time and cost.
12.5.1 Use-Case Metrics
Metrics for a project pertaining to use-cases provide a non-technical, early-on
method for estimating time and effort for a project. Before components are
modeled and coding begins, software is often defined using methods such as use-
cases. Measuring the number of use cases provides a direct way to help determine
the size of a project before major work begins.
12.5.2 Size Metrics
One way to measure projects and compare them is via the use of size-oriented
metrics (Pressman
2005
). These metrics measure the size of past projects and
provide a means for comparing costs, estimating completion time, etc. for current
and future projects. Size-oriented metrics may include the following measurements:
• Lines of code
• Number of person-months of effort (for all stages and processes of development)
• Cost of development (for all stages and processes of development)
• Pages of documentation created
• Number of errors reported prior to release
• Number of defects encountered after release
• Number of people on the project
Once compiled, these data points from past projects can be used by organiza-
tions to develop metrics for use on current and upcoming projects.
12.6 Process Metrics
Unlike project metrics, which tend to exist for use by a team working on a current
project, process metrics tend to be measures across multiple projects and are used
by organizations to improve the software process as a whole to improve software
quality. Project metrics do, however, contribute to the development of process
metrics.
