Quality evaluation of artifacts in tailored software process lines

Abstract

In software engineering, it is necessary to consider variables such as quality, effort, productivity, time and cost of development. Those variables are negatively affected when defective artifacts are produced. In this case, the cost of rework to correct defects increases in relation to the time of their discovery. Therefore, initiatives should be undertaken in order to find these defects and correct them as soon as they are introduced. This work proposes a mechanism to evaluate the quality goals of software artifacts by means of a quality framework. The study has the objective of organizing concepts that involve the definition of quality goals and their respective methods and metrics of evaluation and can be used to facilitate the task of defining quality plans. Besides that, the framework includes a process to evaluate software artifacts generated from a Software Process Line (SPrL). A Web tool that uses SPrL was used to facilitate the adequacy of the process to different contexts of projects.