In our recent work we have explored the possibility of validating that a measurement program is robust. We have worked with seven companies within the software center to establish a method and evaluate it. The results are presented in a newly accepted paper “MeSRAM – A Method for Assessing Robustness of Measurement Programs in Large Software Development Organizations and Its Industrial Evaluation” to appear in Journal of Systems and Software.
In short the method is based on a collecting the evidence that a measurement program contains elements which are important for the program to be able to handle changes. For example whether a measurement program has a dedicated organization working with it and whether the entire company is able to utilize the results from the measurement program.
The method is similar to the stress-testing of banks, so popular in the last decade.
The next step in our research is finding out which metrics the companies should use to assure the long-term robustness of the measurement program. stay tuned!
