TOOL SUPPORT FOR SOFTWARE MEASUREMENT, ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT

This paper presents our strategy, implementation, and experience with tool support for software measurement, analysis, and quality improveme nt in a commercial software development environment. The activities th at need to be supported include: 1) gathering software product and pro cess measurements, 2) analyzing measurement data, and 3) using the res ults to assess and improve software quality. We employed existing inte rnal tools, commercial off-the-shelf tools, and new tools that we deve loped to gather and analyze data, and presented results. These tools w ere tailored to fit the application environments and were integrated t hrough common rules, multiple purpose tools, and utility programs. Thi s approach has been used successfully in supporting software measureme nt and quality improvement for several large commercial software produ cts developed in the IBM Software Solutions Toronto Laboratory. (C) 19 97 Elsevier Science Inc.