An Empirical Study of Software Productivity

Software productivity plays an important role in the evaluation of software processes, from both the developers' and the buyers' points of view. Software developers need to know whether they will be able to build a software product in time with the available resources. Software buyers need to know whether the software organization in charge of developing a software product will be able to build the software product in time with the available resources, with the requested quality, and at a reasonable price. We applied the Goal/Question/Metrics paradigm in a real-life environment in the Italian Public Administration to define a productivity-related measurement goal and derive measures that were deemed relevant to reach the stated goal. Productivity was studied from both a functional and a product size perspectives. Our study has highlighted a few factors that are related to either aspect of productivity. The results may provide software managers with support for evaluating and improving software processes, so they can make decisions based on more quantitative information.