This unique book gives the technical, subject background necessary to make Software Metrics work, and presents a full lifecycle for measurement program development and implementation.
More years ago than I care to remember, let us say twenty five to thirty, Software Metrics was a curiosity confined to a few university researchers and one or two industrial or commercial organizations. Now it is a well established discipline with a growing band of practitioners and adherents. Indeed there is now a whole train of theory and practice that is called "Software Metrics." But, I suggest, still the train moves too slowly. This book is an attempt to speed the train up by helping you to add momentum. Having said that, things have progressed enormously from that dim and distant past!
The material in the book is based on many years of experience in implementing Software Metrics initiatives, four of them as a direct employee in two large organizations. This has been enhanced by experiences gained from acting in a consultancy role to a number of other organizations engaged in implementing similar programs over many more years. The suggestions and models presented in the text are the result of having to find pragmatic solutions to very real, business related problems.
I do not claim that this book is the last word that will ever need to be said about the topic of implementing Software Metrics initiatives; it is not. What it does contain are a set of approaches and techniques, presented as a coherent whole, that have worked in those real business situations together with discussions about specific aspects of Software Metrics based on those same experiences.
Nor can I claim that all of the components that make up this book are my own. I have been privileged to meet some very talented people in many organizations across the world who have been willing to share ideas and concepts freely so that everyone benefits. For this I thank them and I have provided references to their work, whenever I could, throughout the body of this book.