An integrated view of process modelling,
improvement and measurement

Luigi Lavazza

Politecnico di Milano and CEFRIEL

As a consequence of a CMM-based assessment, a large software house --developing inter-bank networking software in Italy-- decided to start a project aimed at establishing an improved configuration management process supported by state-of-the-art tools and incorporating sound practices and well defined and controllable policies. Considering the cost and criticality of this improvement action, it was decided to apply CM to a pilot project, and to monitor the establishment of the CM process, in order to assess the cost/benefits ratio of the operation, to check that the CM process was correctly deployed and effectively used, to gain experience for future redeployment of the CM process to other projects/departments. A goal-oriented measurement program based on the Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach was applied, in order to provide management's questions with objective answers. The paper reports about this work, highlighting the synergy that was established between the development process and the measurement and evaluation process.