Towards Automated Context-Aware Software Quality Management

To consistently improve software quality management, greater automation and tighter integration of quality tools and measurements in the software engineering environment is essential. However, automation of software quality management faces numerous challenges such as project uniqueness, project dynamics, efficiency, and limited time and quality expenditures. In this paper, an approach is proposed that extends the Goal-Question-Metric technique and automates the monitoring of quality goals via a multi-agent system by using competitive bidding agent behavior for proactive vs. cooperative voting for reactive measures. The preliminary results show promise for systematically harmonizing (conflicting) quality attributes, goals, metrics, and countermeasures and for automating aspects of software quality management.