The software business is challenging enough without having to contend with recurring errors. One way repeating errors can be avoided is through effective software measurement. In this volume, Ebert and his co-authors offer practical guidance built upon insight and experience. They detail knowledge and experiences about software measurement in an easily understood, hands-on presentation and explain such current standards as: ISO 15939 (the general measurement standard), ISO 19761 (the COSMIC Full Function Points standard), and CMMI (the Capability Maturity Model). Coverage also includes several case studies, from Global 100 companies such as Alcatel, Deutsche Telekom, and Siemens.

This combination of methodologies and applications makes the book ideally suited for professionals in the software industry. Besides the many practical hints and checklists readers will also appreciate the large reference list, which includes links to metrics communities where project experiences are shared. Further information, continuously updated, can also be found on the web site related to this book: http://metrics.cs.uni-magdeburg.de

This is a book about software measurement from the practitioner’s point of view and it is a book for practitioners. Software measurement needs a lot of practical guidance to build upon experiences and to avoid repeating errors. This book targets exactly this need, namely to share experiences in a constructive way that can be followed. It tries to summarize experiences and knowledge about software measurement so that it is applicable and repeatable. It extracts experiences and lessons learned from the narrow context of the specific industrial situation, thus facilitating transfer to other contexts.

Software measurement is not at a standstill. With the speed software engineering is evolving, software measurement has to keep pace. While the underlying theory and basic principles remain invariant in the true sense (after all, they are not specific to software engineering), the application of measurement to specific contexts and situations is continuously extended. The book thus serves as a reference on these invariant principles as well as a practical guidance on how to make software measurement a success.