A case study of evaluating configuration management practices with goal-oriented measurement

The paper describes the application of goal-oriented measurement for evaluating configuration management practices at Societa Interbancaria per l'Automazione (SIA). SIA is in charge of running, developing, and maintaining the National Interbank Network of Italy. The results of a CMM-based process assessment indicated that configuration management (CM) practice was one of the most premising areas for improvement. A project was initiated aimed at establishing an improved CM process supported by state-of-the-art tools and incorporating sound practices. It was decided to apply the new process to one of the most important products of SIA, which deals with the development of a new generation of networking software. Goal-oriented measurement following the goal/question/metric (GQM) approach was applied to monitor the establishment of the CM process. The paper describes the establishment and execution of the measurement program and reports about related product and process modeling. Different techniques for qualitative and quantitative analysis of experimental data were performed. Selected results and experiences are reported.