Interview with Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Succi - Free University of Bolzano
"The management has to define suitable policies for measuring the software quality"
Professor Dr. Giancarlo Succi visited at the 7th of July the SCCH. He presented the topic "Collecting and Building Experience in Dynamic Software Production Environments". After his presentation was enough time to talk with him about future trends in software engineering, OS and measurements in software production.
SCCH: What projects are ongoing on OS, especially on its quality?
Dr. Giancarlo Succi: Currently, we are working on the project QUALIPSO. Within this EU seventh framework project we have analyzed the quality of Open Source Software. We found out, that the quality is not lower than in proprietary software. We are also trying to set up in South Tyrol a large competence center in Open Source and we are now drafting a suitable business model for it.
SCCH: Measurement in software production – how can companies implement measurement initiatives and how should they deal with the employees' fear of “big brother is watching you”?
Dr. Giancarlo Succi: The quality of the software needs to be ensured throughout the development process. Therefore, the management has to define suitable policies for measuring such quality.
An inappropriate usage of measurement, though, may produce damages to the company. There are several anecdotes about this: for example one company measured the productivity of its employees by the number of the lines of code written. The net effect of such policy was that in the company software engineers produced a lot of lines of code but in bad quality, and avoided all the best practices that helped in factoring out behaviors (loops, functions, etc). The result was a disaster.
Altogether, the management has to define the relevant metrics but also the specific means of adopting it with a very pragmatic approach, supporting the development process and not creating perverse dynamics. The same reasoning applies to the “Big Brother syndrome:” I strongly recommend all managers applying a pervasive measurement process not to use it to evaluate their employees, but keep all the measurement absolutely anonymous, while revealing the details only to the individuals who produced such details. I strongly believe that the vast majority of software developers and engineers aim at improving their skills: therefore, once assured that the collected metrics will not be used in any way against them, they will be the strongest supporters of a measurement plan.
We have developed a specific methodology to apply these and other measurement principles inside an organization, also with the help of suitable tools, like a non-invasive metrics collection system and a customizable dashboard to review and comment the results of measurement.
Read the entire enterview in the attached document.