The 13^th CSI/IFPUG International Software Measurement & Analysis Conference

Creating Value from Measurement

Over the last years, ICT organizations are going to move more and more the focus from software to services and non-functional issues. Function Point Analysis (FPA) still remains a central technique for estimating and sizing functional user requirements (FUR) for software solutions, but needs to be complemented by other metrics for their non-functional side, e.g. applying SNAP, the new IFPUG technique for sizing non-functional requirements (NFRs), based on ISO/IEC 25010:2011. But a project is wider than a ‘product’ and well-known best practices for Service Management as Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) or standards as ISO 20000 considers ‘value’ as the key. Value-based management deals with balancing short-term and long-term goals of stakeholders with different perspectives through informed decision making in order to stay competitive in the market.

In both cases, the decision-making process is based on Measurement, choosing the right goals and drivers for better understanding the way an organization is working and can improve over time. A number of approaches such Balanced Scorecard (BSC), Practical Software Measurement (PSM), Goal-Question-Metric (GQM), or the ISO Measurement Information Model (MIM) developed to support software organizations in planning their measurement programs by linking measurements to the goals of stakeholders at different levels of the organization. The premise of such approaches is that a balanced measurement program can gain continual top management support only if its benefits are utilized at the strategic level as well as throughout the organization instead of looking only (or mostly) at the short-mid term.

Coming to India for the first time, this new edition of the ISMA Conference will provide a forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss most recent advances in planning and sustaining measurement programs from both practical and theoretical perspectives in the scope of software value creation and value-based management in software product and service development organizations. We invite professionals responsible for, involved in, or interested in software measurement to share innovative ideas, experiences, and concerns within this scope.