Quantitative approach to software management: the ami method

Abstract

The paper is describing the ami method to get started with metrication, a 12 steps supported approach. It ensures benefits for project planning and management, cost-effectiveness and match of quality objectives. The ami project is partly funded by the CEC and lead by practitioners in the European Software Industry.

The approach is adapted from the Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) method and achieves a well structured step by step guide to install metrics in any organisation. The background for each group of steps (phase) is described in the following sections and the main recommendations raised from the projects having run validation clearly pointed out.

The ami approach has already been selected by several European Companies such as ALCATEL, GEC Marconi, GEC Alsthom, EDF, Bull A.G. and ESA to act from metrics and to improve both the software process and the product quality.

The ami project is sponsored by CEC DGXIII under the ESPRIT initiative. The following companies are participating to the project: GEC-Marconi Software Systems (UK), South bank polytechnic (UK), CORELIS Technologie (France), GEC Alsthom (France), Rheinisch-Westfälischer TÜV (Germany), Butt-AG (Germany), ALCATEL-ELIN (Austria), Ingenieria & Tecnologia de Sistemas (Spain), O. Group (Italy)