It is certainly our ambition to improve the GQM book and this internet site. If you have ideas for improvements, please do not hesitate to contact us. Rini van Solingen and Egon Berghout  (GQM internet site).

Foreword by professor Victor Basili

Review by Grant Rule

The original ideas for the Goal Question Metric Paradigm came from the need to solve a practical problem back in the late 1970s. How do you decide what you need to measure in order to achieve your goals? We (Dr. David Weiss and I) faced the problem when trying to understand the types of changes (modifications and defects) being made to a set of flight dynamics projects at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Was there a pattern to the changes? If we understood them could we anticipate them and possibly improve the development processes to deal with them? At the same time, we were trying to use change data to evaluate the effects of applying the Software Cost Reduction methodology on the A-7 project requirements document at the Naval Research Laboratory.

Writing goals allowed us to focus on the important issues. Defining questions allowed us to make the goals more specific and suggested the metrics that were relevant to the goals. The resulting GQM lattice allowed us to see the full relationship between goals and metrics, determine what goals and metrics were missing or inconsistent, and provide a context for interpreting the data after it was collected. It permitted us to maximize the set of goals for a particular data set and minimize the data required by recognizing where one metric could be substituted for another.

The process established the way we did measurement in the Software Engineering Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center, and has evolved over time, based upon use. Expansion involved the application to other areas of measurement (such as effort, schedule, process conformance), the development of the goal templates, the development of support processes, the formalization of the questions into models, and the embedding of measurement in an evolutionary feedback loop, the Quality Improvement Process and the Experience Factory Organization. Professor Dieter Rombach was a major contributor to this expansion.

The GQM paradigm represents a practical approach for bounding the measurement problem. It provides an organization with a great deal of flexibility, allowing it to focus its measurement program on its own particular needs and culture. It is based upon two basic assumptions (1) that a measurement program should not be ‘metrics-based’ but ‘goal-based’ and (2) that the definition of goals and measures need to be tailored to the individual organization. However, these assumptions make the process more difficult than just offering people a "collection of metrics" or a standard predefined set of goals and metrics. It requires that the organization make explicit its own goals and processes.

In this book, Rini van Solingen and Egon Berghout provide the reader with an excellent and comprehensive synthesis of the GQM concepts, packaged with the support necessary for building an effective measurement program. It provides more than the GQM, but describes it in the philosophy of the Quality Improvement Paradigm and the Experience Factory Organization. Based upon experience, they have organized the approach in a step-by-step set of procedures, offering experience-based heuristics that I recognize as effective. They have captured the best ideas and offer them in a straightforward manner. In reading this book, I found myself constantly nodding in agreement, finding many ideas I had not articulated as well. They offer several examples that can be used as templates for those who wish to have a standard set of goals and metrics as an initial iteration.

If you work on a measurement program, you should keep this book with you as the definitive reference for ideas and procedures.

Professor Victor R. Basili
University of Maryland
and
Fraunhofer Center for Experimental Software Engineering,  Maryland

"The original ideas for the Goal Question Metric Paradigm came from the need to solve a practical problem back in the late 1970’s. How do you decide what you need to measure in order to achieve your goals? …[Is] there a pattern to the changes? If we understood them could we anticipate them and possibly improve the development processes to deal with them?"

So begins Prof. Vic Basili in a foreword in which the originator of the GQM concept thoroughly endorses the practical approach presented by the authors of this new book, just published by McGraw-Hill in April.

He goes on to say, "In this book, [the authors] provide the reader with an incredible synthesis of the GQM concepts, packaged with the support necessary for building an effective measurement program. It provides more than the GQM, but describes it in the philosophy of the Quality Improvement Paradigm and the Experience Factory Organization. …They have captured the best ideas and offer them in a straight-forward manner."

I wish all the software engineering books I get to see warranted such a well-deserved testimonial. This one does and I wholeheartedly agree. The book is well organised and based on real experience in an industrial environment. Not only is the theory well explained but details of four case studies are given to demonstrate how the ideas can be applied. These cases are not contrived, academic exercises but are expositions of real problems and the approach taken to investigate and resolve them. In addition, the full details of the costs of establishing a GQM programme are explained.

From the outset, the authors place GQM very definitely in the context of software quality improvement and draw the links between the technique and well known improvement models such as the CMM, ISO9001, TickIT, etc. The first part of the book introduces the theory and looks at the motives to apply GQM measurement. In the second part, the GQM method is presented as a stepwise procedure, with descriptions of a phased approach and guidance to apply GQM in practice. The case studies, from programs conducted at Schlumberger Retail Petrol Systems, are presented in a third part. Importantly, these studies report real numbers, eschewing the ‘Oh so common’ reticence of many authors.

A guide aimed at practitioners, this book contains many examples, checklists and document templates which the reader can use in their own programme.

My one quibble, and honestly a minor one, is that the authors would have done well to have had the text edited by a native English speaker. From The Netherlands, both Rini and Egon speak excellent English, putting many native speakers to shame. Never-the-less, a few grammatical faux pas have crept past the proof readers, making for a few odd sentences.

Whatever your involvement with process improvement and software measurement, whether as a manager or practitioner, this book is an absolute "must have".

Highly recommended.

Grant Rule
Software Measurement Services
St. Clare's, Mill Hill, Edenbridge
Kent, TN8 5DQ, United Kingdom
113444.430@compuserve.com