Three Challenges in Quantitative Management of Software Quality

Abstract

Quantitative management of software development projects is one of the most common practices among Japanese software organizations. It is usually driven by a support division such as a software quality management group to help software development divisions to focus on transforming customer requirements into software. However, quantitative management is not always considered as a meaningful practice by developments. There are at least three challenges for effective quantitative management to cooperate with both support and development divisions for excellent software quality. The three challenges include : (1) focus on external quality requirements to be excellence, (2) evaluation of internal quality in contract-based software development, and (3) utilization of process quality data to reveal mechanisms of software quality improvement. A support division needs to play an important role on quantitative management of software quality to drive organizational continuous improvement.