Abstract:
The primary objective of this paper is to present an
exploratory study on the different measurements used at
different milestones throughout a development project.
The paper presents the results of a study, which uses
qualitative techniques to investigate the cognitive
structures appropriate to the requirements phase and the
implementation phase of a software development cycle.
The study involved an e-commerce project, and two
stakeholder groups, the users and the developers. The
results show that measurements between the different
phases are not the same, though the motivation behind
the choice of these measurements is the same for a
stakeholder group. The study also finds that the two
groups of stakeholders are very similar in the
measurements they choose for evaluating requirements
documents, however, the motivation behind their choice
of these measurements differ between the stakeholder
groups. These results are a contrast to that of the
implementation phase.
These results, whilst still exploratory, are valuable as
they highlight the differences and similarities of not just
the stakeholder groups, but more importantly the choice
of measurements at the different milestones. As a result of
this study, the Software Evaluation Framework has been
expanded to consider the many milestones in a
development cycle. The result of this will be a framework
to guide practitioners as they evaluate, test, review,
walkthrough, or inspect the different artifacts that the
many milestones deliver.
