Book Review
Department Editor: Warren Keuffel, wkeuffel@computer.org

Measuring What’s Measurable

Harekrishna Misra

IT Measurement: Practical Advice from Experts, International Function Point Users Group, Addison-Wesley, 2002, ISBN 0-201-74158-X, 759 pp., US$54.99.

Measuring IT success continues to challenge stakeholders whether it’s in conceptualization, acquisition, maintenance, or even reuse. Because software relates to both business processes and systems, it’s the central issue for overall IT success. All other IT components, such as hardware, networks, and communication, revolve around software. So, how do you ensure a quality acquisition? Can you defend IT-acquisition success in a scenario in which most of the software projects fail, many have cost-time overruns, many are even abandoned, and, in most cases, dissatisfaction results in rework? IT Measurement aims to help you answer these questions.

Do expert viewpoints on metrics matter?

This book’s major strength is compiling the experts’ knowledge to prescribe metrics from the IT vendor perspective, with most of the experts providing quality tools to measure software projects. The general discussion focuses on metrics for software projects: developing the metrics, recording, monitoring, and assessing project variances. However, the experts’ focus is skewed toward developing metrics for managing developers, IT vendors, and service providers.

Assessing processes for quality and adhering to metrics doesn’t guarantee quality products. But metrics, if developed and used properly, can provide better tools for measuring processes as well as products. The experts cover these issues aptly. The user’s metrics (the ultimate stakeholder), on the other hand, lacked emphasis. Aside from one section in the book, the chapters discussed function points, function point analysis, metrics and its uses, and evaluation estimation techniques in a project management scenario.

When to measure performance

In IT Measurement, the experts and the International Function Point Users Group explain and emphasize measuring performance in all stages of a software project. They thoroughly cover balanced scorecard IT for internalizing an organization’s strength, and they devote two chapters to the issues surrounding metrics for outsourcing, which is becoming a common practice. Another of the book’s strengths is its detailed discussion on the triangular relationship among IT user, IT vendor (supplier), and IT organization (implementer).

The book effectively details the project management perspective of quality models in IT acquisition, especially issues related to applying International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and Capability Maturity Model standards to an organization. Chapters 36 and 37 in particular provide a good introduction to the software measurement process and the role of source lines of code (SLOC), CMM, and ISO. Although the book covers Software-CMM (SW-CMM) and CMMI, a discussion on the importance of metrics for software acquisition-CMM (SA-CMM) would have enriched the measurement concept in the book. Metrics for SA-CMM would have also provided a better understanding of project management and performance measures and metrics for acquisition focusing on the acquirer’s viewpoint.

Customer satisfaction is key

A satisfied customer is the ultimate goal in business—and IT acquisition is no exception. Because IT measurement is perpetual in nature, it’s premature to define effective measurement tools for IT project success. This book is a definite step toward making the developer aware of using appropriate metrics for optimizing resources and benefiting the client.

ecause the book was written by experts, it’s suitable for nonexperts if supplemented by

by Norman Fenton and Shari Pfleeger (Brooks Cole, 2002),

by Robert Grady and Deborah Caswell (Prentice Hall, 1987),

by Pankaj Jalote (Addison-Wesley, 2002),

(Pressman, 2001), and/or

(Karan, 2002).