SOFTWARE PROCESS MODELING AND MEASUREMENT - A QMS CASE-STUDY

Over the past decade measurement has focused primarily on the produce of the development process. More recently the process itself has come Under closer scrutiny. However, this has highlighted a problem, namely that it is difficult to measure something that tends to be rather dif fuse and ill-defined. As a company's performance is intimately linked to its underlying processes, there is a need to provide a means by whi ch process analysis can be undertaken in a reasonably objective fashio n. As a consequence the last few years have seen the emergence of proc ess modelling as a means of providing reference models on which assess ment can be based. The paper presents a unified view of these three di sciplines and shows that by adopting such an integrated approach a ver y firm basis for improvement can be established. In this paper it is a ssumed that the aim of a process is to produce products that are on ti me, to cost, and of high quality. As this is the primary aim, product measures provide the target against which assessment will be based. Pr ocess issues such as productivity, efficiency and adaptability, etc., provide the objectives for the process measures. These measures are ba sed firmly on the organizational goals, and the underlying process mod el.