Organization-oriented measurement and evaluation framework for software and web engineering projects

Abstract

A common challenge faced by many software and Web organizations is to have sound specifications of metrics and indicators metadata, and a clear establishment of measurement and evaluation frameworks and programs. In addition, organizations can succeed in this endeavour if resulting measurements and evaluations are tailored to their information needs for specific purposes, contexts, and user viewpoints. In previous works an ontology for software metrics and indicators was specified based as much as possible on the concepts of specific ISO standards. In this paper, we discuss a measurement and evaluation framework so-called INCAMI (Information Need, Concept model, Attribute, Metric and Indicator), which is based on that ontology. We argue this framework can be more robust and well-established than the GQM (Goal-Question-Metric) paradigm for measurement and evaluation purposes. Finally, an example is presented and the strengths and weaknesses of this framework compared with others are analysed as well. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.