Embedding software measurement in a soft systems approach

This paper is the result of reflection upon a series of software measurement exercises that have been carried out in a telecommunications engineering environment. These exercises were conducted in a manner which attempted, as far as possible, to follow recognised good practice. It is argued that while approaches such as the Goal/Question/Metric paradigm and the framework for the validation of software measurements suggested by Kitchenham et al. have rightly been very influential, they have not always offered useful advice because they have been based either on traditional engineering paradigms and/or have used unhelpful analogies from physical science. We argue that software development involves human activity systems (HAS) and following on Bell et al suggest the use of soft systems methods (SSM). Unlike Bell et al, we put forward the view that there is no need to merge SSM with other methodologies, but that measurement can naturally be embedded within the general SSM approach to problemsolving.