Developing measurement systems: an industrial case study

Abstract

Abstract The process of measuring in software engineering has already been standardized in the ISO/IEC 15939 standard, where activities related to identifying, creating, and evaluating of measures are described. In the process of measuring software entities, however, an organization usually needs to create custom measurement systems, which are intended to collect, analyze, and present data for a specific purpose. In this paper, we present a proven industrial process for developing measurement systems including the artifacts and deliverables important for a successful deployment of measurement systems in industry. The process has been elicited during a case study at Ericsson and is used in the organization for over 3 years when the paper was written. The process is supported by a framework that simplifies the implementation of the measurement systems and shortens the time from the initial idea to a working measurement system by the factor of 5 compared with using a standard development process not tailored for measurement systems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.