kmccook@wrdis01.af.mil (Ken McCook) (04/17/91)
I'm posting this to both groups to draw a wider response and because I write Ada code and think and design software systems in Ada. (*PLEASE* follow-up to comp.software-eng). ________________________________________________________________________________ My Boss has asked that we try and define a statistical method that he can use to take the pulse of any given project so he'll have a *TRUE* indication of how that project is going. He's looking for a Total Quality Management (TQM) consistent indicator using statistical process control (SPC). I know software management is different from software engineering, but does software engineering allow us to better measure a projects health? We've toyed with this notion for more than a year now to no avail. I thought I'd put it to the net and see what comes up. How do other managers and other development shops determine how well they are doing on a given project? Can you develop indicators on the intangibles involved in software development? If software engineering is going to help us to build software like structural engineering builds bridges, what do other engineers use to measure their projects by? I've read all the back-postings and have seen some good discussion about software projects each being as different as a dam is from a suspension bridge, but can there be commonalities? Are they measurable? Someone must have a handle on this, after all, if a contractor/vendor couldn't predict with some degree of accuracy his capabilities to produce software products and how well he was doing compared to his estimate, then all projects would be underbid and overdue, and soon he'd be out of business.(?) Hope you find this thread worth some discussion! I'm interested in all viewpoints. ________________________________________________________________________________ Ken McCook U.S.A.F. 1926th CCSG Robins AFB GA (912) 926-3224 kmccook@wrdis01.af.mil (DSN) 468-3224 ________________________________________________________________________________