SEAA-Session MeSVAM: Measurement as a Strategy for Software Value Management
Software organizations have been aware of the significance of measurement process for informed decision-making and for managing software processes, products and projects. Measurement is regarded as an important enabler for software process improvement. It also facilitates benchmarking and effective communication between the software development organizations and the customer. Research indicates, however, that achieving a successful and effective measurement program still remains a challenge. Many software organizations do actually benefit much less than what they can from the measurement programs they initiated.
A potential benefit that was often overlooked in the past, but is key to today’s software organizations’ success, is the use of measurement programs for better business and customer value management. Software value management is to reconcile all stakeholders’ views in a software organization to achieve the best balance between satisfying the needs and the resources required. On the other hand, it has been well known in the measurement community that linking measurements to the organizational goals is crucial in planning and establishing successful measurement programs. Otherwise, it is not uncommon to find software organizations that are collecting redundant data, data that nobody uses, or data that might be useful to people who are not aware that such data exist. Thanks to a number of approaches such Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Practical Software Measurement (PSM), Goal-Question-Metric (GQM), Measurement Information Model (MIM) and recently GQM+ Strategies developed to support software organizations in planning their measurement programs by linking measurements to the goals of stakeholders in different levels of the organization.
The premise of these approaches is that a measurement program can gain continual top management support only if its benefits are utilized at the strategic level as well as throughout the organization. And, the data providers are motivated to provide correct and up to date data if they see the value of their effort in data collection, which in turn requires transparency as well as traceability in the contributions of different stakeholders to the strategic level goals and the value produced. On the other hand, considering the dynamic nature of the software organizations in planning and establishing measurement programs is crucial. A measurement program evolves over time as the size of the organization, the number of stakeholders and their goals change. If the measurement framework was not structured to be flexible in a dynamic environment and let to evolve without continuously establishing and aligning the links between the different stakeholders’ goals, information needs and the collected measures, regardless of how well it was planned at the beginning, it might eventually lead to poor use of data and loss of global understanding of the program’s outcomes. Therefore, we see a need for new approaches, models, methods and tools for establishing cost-effective measurement programs and which support software value management through transparency and traceability in dynamic environments.
This special session will provide a forum for both practitioners and researchers to discuss the most recent advances in planning and sustaining measurement programs from both practical and theoretical perspectives in the scope of software value creation and its management in software organizations. We invite professionals responsible for, involved in, or interested in software measurement to share innovative ideas, experiences, and concerns within this scope. The session targets two types of contributions: (1) Experience contributions: problem statements and practiced solutions in planning and using measurement programs for strategic decision-making, and (2) Research contributions: empirical studies, hypothesized models, and suggestions for establishing dynamic and cost-effective measurement programs or improving software business value management through measurement.
The session topics include but are not limited to:
- Definition of software measures for business and customer value
- Software measurement requirements for business value management
- Alignment of the goals of business level and the other stakeholders in software organizations
- Developing and using business cases for software projects
- Cost-effective measurement programs
- Factors influencing success rates of measurement programs in organizations
- Software benchmarking for better strategic decision making
- ICT Balanced Scorecards: tailored-Balanced Scorecards (e.g. with more than four perspectives), cause-effect analysis for strategic maps and Return-On-Investment
- Benchmarking (internal and against other organizations)
SUBMISSION OF PAPERS
The Paper submission system and further instructions are available at the submission page.
Accepted papers will be included in the proceedings, published by the Conference Publishing Services (CPS).
Extended versions of selected papers will be considered for publication in the Journal on Information and Software Technology (Elsevier).
Session Organizers
 |
Cigdem Gencel, Assist Prof., Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
|
 |
Maya Daneva, Assist Prof., University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
|
 |
Luigi Buglione, Assoc. Prof., Engineering.IT, Italy
|
Program Committee
- Silvia Abrahão, Valencia Univ. of Technology, Spain
- Aybüke Aurum, The Univ. of New South Wales, Australia
- Nelly Condori-Fernandez, University of Twente, The Netherlands
- Ton Dekkers, Galorath International Ltd., UK
- Tony Gorschek, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
- Paul Grünbacher, Johannes Kepler Univ. Linz, Austria
- Jens Heidrich, Fraunhofer IESE, Germany
- Vladimir Mandic, University of Oulu, Finland
- Jürgen Münch, Fraunhofer IESE, Germany
- Kai Petersen, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
- Luca Santillo, Agile Metrics, Italy
- Ayca Tarhan, Hacettepe University, Turkey
|
