A Model of Project Supervision for Process Correction and Improvement

Recently, software functional size becomes larger, and consequently, not only a software developer but also a software purchaser suffers considerable losses by software project failure. So avoiding project failure is also important for purchasers. Project supervision (monitoring and control) is expected for the purchaser to suppress risk of project failure. It is performed by sharing software metrics during the project for the purchaser to grasp the status of the project, and corrective actions are done based on analysis results of the metrics. Although there are some software measurement models, the models are not enough to describe how to confirm effects of project supervision. To acquire the effects certainly, the purchaser and the developer should quantitatively confirm whether the effects are acquired or not by project supervision. In addition, the models cannot represent corrective actions when symptoms of project failure are found. We propose the model for project supervision. The model explains planning, collecting data, transforming data, analyzing data, reaction toward found issues, and confirming effect of project supervision. With our model, project supervision can be described more rigorously.