UNDERSTANDING SOFTWARE PRODUCTIVITY
Walt Scacchi · Series on software engineering and knowledge engineering · 1995
What affects software productivity and how do we improve it? This report examines the current state of the art in software productivity measurement. In turn, it describes a framework for understanding software productivity, some fundamentals of measurement, surveys empirical studies of software productivity, and identifies challenges involved in measuring software productivity. A radical alternative to current approaches is suggested: to construct, evaluate, deploy, and evolve a knowledge-based "software productivity modeling and simulation system" using tools and techniques from the domain of software process engineering. 1 This is a revised and expanded version of the paper that originally appeared in the Intern. J. Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 1(3), 293-321, (1991). This version will appear in Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering: Trends for the Next Decade, D. Hurley (ed.), Vol. 4, World Scientific Press, (1995). 1 1. Overview What affects sof...