TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigating the impact of a measurement program on software quality
AU - Sahraoui, Houari
AU - Briand, Lionel C.
AU - Guéhéneuc, Yann Gaël
AU - Beaurepaire, Olivier
PY - 2010/9
Y1 - 2010/9
N2 - Context: Measurement programs have been around for several decades but have been often misused or misunderstood by managers and developers. This misunderstanding prevented their adoption despite their many advantages. Objective: In this paper, we present the results of an empirical study on the impact of a measurement program, MQL ("Mise en Qualité du Logiciel", French for "Quality Software Development"), in an industrial context. Method: We analyzed data collected on 44 industrial systems of different sizes: 22 systems were developed using MQL while the other 22 used ad-hoc approaches to assess and control quality (control group, referred to as "ad-hoc systems"). We studied the impact of MQL on a set of nine variables: six quality factors (maintainability, evolvability, reusability, robustness, testability, and architecture quality), corrective-maintenance effort, code complexity, and the presence of comments. Results: Our results show that MQL had a clear positive impact on all the studied indicators. This impact is statistically significant for all the indicators but corrective-maintenance effort. Conclusion: We bring concrete evidence that a measurement program can have a significant, positive impact on the quality of software systems if combined with appropriate decision making procedures and corrective actions.
AB - Context: Measurement programs have been around for several decades but have been often misused or misunderstood by managers and developers. This misunderstanding prevented their adoption despite their many advantages. Objective: In this paper, we present the results of an empirical study on the impact of a measurement program, MQL ("Mise en Qualité du Logiciel", French for "Quality Software Development"), in an industrial context. Method: We analyzed data collected on 44 industrial systems of different sizes: 22 systems were developed using MQL while the other 22 used ad-hoc approaches to assess and control quality (control group, referred to as "ad-hoc systems"). We studied the impact of MQL on a set of nine variables: six quality factors (maintainability, evolvability, reusability, robustness, testability, and architecture quality), corrective-maintenance effort, code complexity, and the presence of comments. Results: Our results show that MQL had a clear positive impact on all the studied indicators. This impact is statistically significant for all the indicators but corrective-maintenance effort. Conclusion: We bring concrete evidence that a measurement program can have a significant, positive impact on the quality of software systems if combined with appropriate decision making procedures and corrective actions.
KW - Empirical study
KW - Measurement program
KW - Software quality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953811894&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.infsof.2010.03.013
DO - 10.1016/j.infsof.2010.03.013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953811894
SN - 0950-5849
VL - 52
SP - 923
EP - 933
JO - Information and Software Technology
JF - Information and Software Technology
IS - 9
ER -