Assessment of software measurement: an information quality study

Abstract

This paper reports on the first phase of an empirical research project concerning methods to assess the quality of the information in software measurement products. Two measurement assessment instruments are developed and deployed in order to generate two sets of analyses and conclusions. These sets will be subjected to an evaluation of their information quality in phase two of the project. One assessment instrument was based on AIMQ, a generic model of information quality. The other instrument was developed by targeting specific practices relating to software project management and identifying requirements for information support. Both assessment instruments delivered data that could be used to identify opportunities to improve measurement The generic instrument is cheap to acquire and deploy, while the targeted instrument requires more effort to build. Conclusions about the relative merits of the methods, in terms of their suitability for improvement purposes, await the results from the second phase of the project.