A correlation between quality management metrics and technical performance measurement

Abstract

The quality of software management has an affect on the degree of success or failure of a software development program, this statement has been argued successfully by Martin J. Machniak in his thesis Development of a Quality Management Metric (QMM) Measuring Software Program Management Quality. The QMM metrics can be used both to characterize the quality of software management and provde a template for improving software management performance. Technical Performance Measurement (TPM) in the most basic form is a plan of expected technical achievement in which the actual progress is compared with periodic measurements. However, the difference between the plan and the actual measures is a technical variance with can be considered good or bad, depending on the level of tolerance givien in the requirements. TPM is breaking new ground in the development of various techniques for TPM where planning is integrated with cost, schedule, and program impact assessment. The author administered the QMM questonnaire to measure the perceptions of program managers that have the responsibility for software development programs within the U.S. Army. The author then gathered TPM data using an informal verification and validation of the same programs used for the QMM questionnaire, and compared the results and found an inconclusive correlation between them.