ESTABLISHING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS CONTROL THROUGH PROCESS QUALITY INDICATORS

1To produce and maintain product quality we contend that one must control the development and maintenance processess through the collection, examination and analysis of both process and product indicators. Process indicators provide measures that reflect the effectiveness of software development and maintenance activities. Product indicators provide measures that indicate the extent to which desirable, quality attributes are present (or absent) in the product (documentation and code). Establishing process control requires a foundational underpinning that (a) reflects a complementary integration of maintenance and development activities, (b) the identification and definition of a (semi-) automated data collection and analysis process which employs quality indicators that are definitively linkded to the existance of process and product attributes, the use of acceptable software engineering principles, and (c) the formulation and use of control methods that are designed to work within the defined automated process and to provide decision support capabilities. Based on previous experience, and building on our previous research results, we propose to define a foundation that can be used as a springboard for establishing software development process control. Results from this effort are expected to make significant contributions to software engineering technology by providing a blueprint by which organizations can establish a controlled software development process.