Quality management metrics for software development

It can be argued that the quality of software management has an effect on the degree of success or failure of a software development program. We have developed a metric for measuring the quality of software management along four dimensions: requirements management, estimation/planning management, people management, and risk management. The quality management metric (QMM) for a software development program manager is a composite score obtained using a questionnaire administered to both the program manager and a sample of his or her peers. The QMM is intended to both characterize the quality of software management and serve as a template for improving software management performance. We administered the questionnaire to measure the performance of managers responsible for large software development programs within the US Department of Defense (DOD). Informal verification and validation of the metric compared the QMM score to an overall program-success score for the entire program; this resulted in a positive correlation.