Software Measurement Activities in Small and Medium Enterprises: an Empirical Assessment

An empirical study for evaluating the proper implementation of measurement/metric programs in software companies in one area of Turkey is presented. The research questions are discussed and validated with the help of senior software managers (more than 15 years’ experience) and then used for interviewing a variety of medium and small scale software companies in Ankara. Observations show that there is a common reluctance/lack of interest in utilizing measurements/metrics despite the fact that they are well known in the industry. A side product of this research is that internationally recognized standards such as ISO and CMMI are pursued if they are a part of project/job requirements; without these requirements, introducing those standards to the companies remains as a long-term target to increase quality

A DISCUSSION ON ASSURING SOFTWARE QUALITY IN SMALL AND MEDIUM SOFTWARE ENTERPRISES: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION

Under the studies of general core activities including software inspection, review and testing to achieve quality objectives in small-medium size enterprises (SMEs), the paper presents a contemporary view of such companies against quality measures. The results from a local empirical investigation of quality standards in the Turkish software industry are reported.Around 150 software companies have been approached from which 17 detailed feedback inform that in order to ensure software quality, standards including internationally recognized International Standards Organization (ISO) and Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) are given credit. However the substantial workload and resources required to obtain them are also reported as serious; downscaled frameworks of such large models proposed in the literature are not well known by the SMEs either. The paper also discusses "work around" that bypasses such standards to ease delivery of products while keeping certificates as labels just to acquire new jobs for the business

Software Quality in Academic Curriculum: A Case Study in Turkey

A variety of courses are taught in the undergraduate programs of computer science, computer engineering, software engineering and information system engineering. The preferred choices of the software industry are for hiring engineers for their companies from these disciplines, related to this fact, the emphasis on quality in software given to the associated departments' students, hence on quality objectives in software process, are studied. With this aim, a survey of the curricula of these branches in the top ten Turkish universities is undertaken. Our observations show software quality is not considered commonly as a core course except in software engineering, while the computer engineering departments provide the majority of the graduates to the industry. The results may be interpreted as suggesting that a reason for loose monitoring of standards in the software industry may be associated with this observation because graduates with transcripts on quality are few in number

A Discussion on IS and Software Measurement Terminology: Flexibility as an Example

Closeness in meaning of the terms in the information systems and software engineering may result in discussion of using proper affiliated terms while covering the scope of research. An example is touched in this exploratory study, which discusses flexibility and its affiliated terms: changeability, adaptability, compatibility, flexibility, expandability, extendibility, extensibility and portability. A risk of misinterpretation due to the variety of the usage of the term is noted whereas the adoption of the term has shown that the literature does not have such examples to a serious level; but this review informs about missing discussions in the research reports in the literature due to omitting or ignoring affiliated terms of the keywords. Another product of this paper is to provide basis for future studies in the flexibility as a quality factor in the software measurement