June 2002
Volume 4 • Number 3

Contents

OVERVIEW

This issue begins with a contribution by Charles Weber and Beth Layman entitled "Measurement Maturity and the CMM: How Measurement Practices Evolve as Processes Mature." They describe a natural evolution of measurement approaches as an organization progresses through the levels of the Capability Maturity Model for software. At each successive level, the measurement practices are shown to build on the previous levels, evolving to support the maturation of the overall development processes. Rather than having one level’s approach replace that of a previous level, project and organizational measures from the previous levels should be successively refined and augmented.

Alec Dorling reports on "Successful Information Technology Procurement (Members Only)," combining a survey of published “best practice” guidance with an empirical study of actual procurement activities. Specific recommendations from 14 of the most popular procurement methodologies have been analyzed and their impact measured. The results of these studies form the basis for a guidebook that allows organizations to identify actions and improvements specific to their situation and procurement needs. The author concludes by describing the Procurement Forum – an ongoing effort to provide these insights to more organizations.

"An Analytical Approach to Software Metrics Management (Members Only)" is offered by Alex Glushkovsky. He considers three aspects of such management: metrics establishment (including business-specific customization), determination of necessary data collection, and metrics analysis and utilization. A matrix framework, built on the principles of quality function deployment, relates goals for business improvement to selection of metrics and then to the data that are collected and analyzed.

Christian P. Halvorsen and Reider Conradi present "A Taxonomy to Compare Software Process Improvement Frameworks (Members Only)." As they point out, it is a basic premise of all software process improvement efforts that product quality is strongly influenced by process quality in software development and maintenance. Hence practitioners would be well advised to make informed choices in their selection of a process improvement model or framework, whether software-specific (such the CMM and ISO/IEC 15504) or not (ISO 9001, TQM). Their article distills the components of process improvement into a consolidated taxonomy with 25 relevant characteristics, which in turn are employed in evaluation of several frameworks currently on offer.

Software Quality Professional
Editorial/Production

Editor-in-Chief
Taz Daughtrey
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia
sqpeditor@aol.com

Associate Editors
Sue Carroll
SAS
Cary, North Carolina

Paul R. Croll
Computer Sciences Corporation
King George, Virginia

Beth Layman
Teraquest
Melbourne Beach, Florida

Stanley H. Levinson
Framatome ANP, Inc.
Lynchburg, Virginia

John Pustaver
SWQuality, Inc.
Sudbury, Massachusetts

Publisher
William Tony

Manuscript Coordinator
Dave Nelsen

Copy Editors
Leigh Ann Klaus
Kris McEachern

Production Administrator
Cathy Schnackenberg

Graphic Designer
Mary Uttech

Digital Production Specialists
Jen Czajka
Jill Zimmerman

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