Grupo Alarcos · Conference paper · 2004

Definition and empirical validation of metrics for software process models

Félix Óscar García Rubio, Mario Piattini Velthuis

PROFES · 2004 · 9 citations (OpenAlex)

Software companies are becoming more and more concerned about software process improvement, when they are promoting the improvement of the final products. One of the main reason of the growing interest in software metrics has been the perception that software metrics are necessary for software process improvement. Measurement is essential for understanding, defining, managing and controlling the software development and maintenance processes and it is not possible to characterize the various aspects of development in a quantitative way without having a deep understanding of software development activities and their relationships. In this paper a representative set of metrics for software process models is presented in order to evaluate the influence of the software process models complexity in their quality. These metrics are focused on the main elements included in a model of software processes, and may provide the quantitative base necessary to evaluate the changes in the software processes in companies with high maturity levels. To demonstrate the practical utility of the metrics proposed at model level, an experiment has been achieved which has allowed us to obtain some conclusions about the influence of the metrics proposed on two sub-characteristics of the maintainability: understandability and modifiability, which besides confirm the results of a subjective experiment previously performed.