Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!uwvax!shorty.cs.wisc.edu!dparter
From: dparter@shorty.cs.wisc.edu (David Parter)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Software Quality
Keywords: Quality, Metrics, Process Improvement Team, TQM
Message-ID: <1991Apr2.200958.8208@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 2 Apr 91 20:09:58 GMT
References: <36650001@hpopd.pwd.hp.com> <3955.27ee3172@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <1853@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu (The News)
Organization: University of Wisconsin CS Department
Lines: 38

>In article <36650001@hpopd.pwd.hp.com>, daves@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Dave Straker) writes:
>> [someone else writes]:
>> 
>> "Process data must not be used to compare projects or individuals. Its
>>  purpose is to illuminate the product being developed and to provide an
>>  informed basis for improving the process. When such data is used by
>>  management to evaluate individuals or teams, the reliability of the 
>>  data itself will deteriorate."
>> 
>>      --- Watts Humphrey, "Managing the Software Process", Addison Wesley 1989

[reformated so it is more readable]

> No question about the statement.  Now, even with all of the good words,
> how do we get Humphrey's principle into a useful paradigm.  If x
> produces buggy code from month to month to month, does management let
> it continue or do they get this person into a bug reducing class.  Or
> do they continue to rework the code because the "data must not be
> used.." to evaluate x.  Tough problem.  This may be taking the problem
> to an extreme but if data indicates that the problem may be in a
> person's techniques or style, what do you do if you are management or a
> member of a team?

If a specific member of the team is producing buggy code from month to
month, that is, the quality of his or her work is siginificantly worse
than that of the rest of the team, the other members of the team,
probably including management, already know this. 

I was about to go on about what metrics are good for, but it is covered
in the second sentence of the quote above from Humphry:

	"[Process data] ... Its purpose is to illuminate the product
	 being developed and to provide an informed basis for improving
	 the process."

--david
-- 
david parter					dparter@cs.wisc.edu