Applying GQM
in an industrial software factory

Alfonso Fuggetta‡, Luigi Lavazza‡, Sandro Morasca‡,
Stefano Cinti†, Giandomenico Oldano†, Elena Orazi†

‡ Politecnico di Milano and CEFRIEL

† Digital Italy

Goal/Question/Metric (GQM) is a paradigm for the systematic definition, establishment, and exploitation of measurement programs supporting the quantitative evaluation of software processes and products. Although GQM is a quite well-known method, detailed guidelines for establishing a GQM program in an industrial environment are still limited. Also, there are few reported experiences on the application of GQM to industrial cases. Finally, the technological support for GQM is still inadequate.

This paper describes the experience we have gained in applying GQM at Digital laboratories in Italy. The procedures, experiences, and technology that have been employed in this study are largely reusable by other industrial organizations willing to introduce a GQM-based measurement program in their development environments.

ACM Categories and Subject Descriptors:
D.2.2 [Software Engineering] Tools and Techniques — Computer-aided software engineering (CASE); D.2.8 [Software Engineering] Metrics — Performance measures; D.2.9 [Software Engineering] Management — Productivity; Software quality assurance (SQA)