Software Engineering Management

In software engineering, management activities occur at three levels: organizational and infrastructure management, project management, and measurement program planning and control. This section describes the areas of project management, including initiation and scope definition, project planning, project enactment, review and evaluation, and engineering measurement. These subjects are often regarded as being separate, and indeed they do possess many unique aspects, their close relationship has led to their combined treatment in software engineering as effective management requires a combination of both numbers and experience.

Software Engineering Measurement

Establish and Sustain Measurement Commitment

  • Accept requirements for measurement. Each measurement endeavor should be guided by organizational objectives and driven by a set of measurement requirements established by the organization and the project. For example, an organizational objective might be "first-to-market with new products". This in turn might engender a requirement that factors contributing to this objective be measured so that projects might be managed to meet this objective.
  • Define scope of measurement. The organizational unit to which each measurement requirement is to be applied must be established. This may consist of a functional area, a single project, a single site, or even the whole enterprise. All subsequent measurement tasks related to this requirement should be within the defined scope. In addition, the stakeholders should be identified.
  • Commitment of management and staff to measurement. The commitment must be formally established, communicated, and supported by resources (see next item).
  • Commit resources for measurement. The organization's commitment to measurement is an essential factor for success, as evidenced by assignment of resources for implementing the measurement process. Assigning resources includes allocation of responsibility for the various tasks of the measurement process (such as user, analyst, and librarian) and providing adequate funding, training, tools, and support to conduct the process in an enduring fashion.