A metric for software service outsourcing contracts within the scope of the Brazilian Federal Public Administration

The Brazilian public administration outsources software development and has a large budget for this purpose. However, as they use public resources, these contracts are subject to control agencies' audits, like the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU). The TCU prohibited using the Technical Service Unit (TSU) metric due to the lack of standardization. Within this context, this work presents the results of adopting a process model to create a metric applied to service outs ourcing contracts, based on a historical basis, expert opinion, and complying with current Brazilian legislation. The process was applied in a federal judiciary court, resulting in a contract in the information technology area, with 12 professional profiles involved in activities to support the software engineering processes, demanded through a pre-defined catalog of services. The TSU proved to be the best alternative in the analyzed context, with the risk of malpractice mitigated, observing positive results emerging from this innovation.