Chapter 16: Closing Thoughts

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This book has dealt with the development and implementation of a Software Metrics program. Hopefully it has done so in a practical way and you will have gained some appreciation of the work involved and the type of tasks that need to be addressed. Perhaps you have been surprised by the relatively small part that "metrics" have to play in this work and how much the involvement of people can affect the success or failure of such a program.

If you follow the lifecycle laid out in Section Two of this book you will stand a relatively good chance of implementing your program but, in the end, it all comes down to you.

There is one final point that I would like to make. Software Metrics are a very "hot topic" in our industry today. Every conference and seminar that you attend will have some mention of metrics and you see it more and more as a topic in the trade press. People are even writing books about metrics! My point is that Software Metrics in isolation are useless.

Only when they form part of the enabling function within an organization's will to improve its process and its products can Software Metrics deliver their full potential.

Measurement simply puts you in a position where you have the chance to solve problems. Let's face it, before you started measuring you probably did not know what your problems were, you just knew they existed. As for solving them without any form of measurement, forget it. If you do not measure, how will you know when the problem has been solved?

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that measurement will solve all your problems; it will not. Only you can solve your problems. Measurement does help, though. The other thing that helps is to share your problems and concerns with others who face similar circumstances. By far the best advice I can give to close this book is that you take the trouble to attend conferences and seminars that address the problem of measurement in a software engineering environment. Talk to people who have faced or who are facing the same situation you face and you will be happy to find that many people have found solutions.

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