A study on application of software metrics for effective project management and decision making

Abstract

Software metrics are used to quantify characteristics of the software development process. Metrics help the project managers to know the current status of the project, software development progress, quality of software and other information necessary based on management information needs. Project managers depend on software metrics to make suitable decisions to keep the project on track. Some examples of software metrics which are used in the software industry are defect density, effort and schedule variance, customer satisfaction index, productivity index etc.Quantitative measurement is the backbone of any industry for making right decisions at the right time, and more so for software industry which is predominantly knowledge based. The challenge lies in identifying appropriate metrics which characterizes the processes involved, collecting the measures in the required periodicity and having quantitative indicators at the appropriate level of management to evolve effective decisions in managing software projects. Hence, it is imperative for organizations to determine that their metrics system is efficient in giving adequate visibility for decision making and mid-course correction of software projects. newline