Chapter 16. Taking Measures to Stay on Track
In order to keep the software process in control, you have to institute a policy of careful and effective measurement. If you don’t measure, then you’re left with only one reason to believe that you are still in control: hysterical optimism.
—Tom DeMarco, Controlling Software Projects
Military commanders in battle must cope with the “fog of war,” that lack of knowledge about the disposition and activities of both their own forces and those of the enemy. Similarly, software engineers and managers must cope with the “fog of work,” the lack of quantitative information about their software products, projects, and processes. The objective of software measurement is to provide managers and developers with ...
Get Creating a Software Engineering Culture now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
