Generalized software process-integrated metrics framework
Abstract The article presents a software process-integrated metrics framework that is derived and driven by the user satisfaction and profitability to the producer (USPP) at the top and further defined by the successive translations of USPP to lower-level metrics at the bottom. This process of deriving lower-level metrics from the higher-level metrics can be continued iteratively as far down in the process as needed. Once all the definitions or links are in place, the lower-level metrics can be gathered and fed up the chain in a bottom-up fashion to see if the USPP expectations are indeed met. The article also focuses on the software process fundamentals, the process stage model, the associated metrics framework, the process of defining various metrics from the top to the bottom, and the generalized metrics definition. The intent is not to define the metrics but instead provide a methodology and framework so that meaningful metrics can be defined.