Process assessment

models
Software assessment is the process of evaluating and analyzing the quality,
capability, usability, and performance of software applications or systems. The
primary objective of software assessment is to identify potential flaws, bugs,
vulnerabilities, and errors in software components that can impact the system's
functionality, security, and overall user experience. During software assessment, the
software is thoroughly checked and tested against the stated requirements, industry
standards, and user expectations. The assessment can be conducted by team members
or external experts in software engineering, quality assurance, and security.

Process assessment models (PAMs) are frameworks used to assess and evaluate the
quality and maturity of an organization's processes. These models provide a structured
approach to measure, compare, and improve the processes within an organization.
PAMs help organizations identify their strengths and weaknesses, establish
benchmarks, and define improvement plans.

A software process assessment is a closely controlled examination of the software

processes used by an organization, based on a process model. The assessment
includes the identification and characterization of current practices, identifying areas
of strengths and weaknesses, and the ability of current practices to control or avoid
significant causes of poor (software) quality, cost, and schedule.
A self-assessment (first-party assessment) is performed internally by an organization's own
personnel.
A second-party assessment is performed by an external assessment team or the organization is
assessed by a customer.
A third-party assessment is performed by an external party or (e.g., a supplier being assessed
by a third party to verify its ability to enter contracts with a customer).
The software assessment process involves the following activities:

1. Requirement analysis: In this stage, the software requirements are analyzed to

ensure that they are clear short and snappy, and complete.
2. Design review: The software's design and architecture are analyzed to identify
potential flaws that can impact its performance, scalability, and maintainability.
3. Code review: This stage involves reviewing the actual code to ensure that it meets
coding standards and is free from errors, bugs, and vulnerabilities.
4. Testing: This involves testing the software in various scenarios and environments
to ensure that it performs as expected and meets the requirements.
5. Security assessment: This involves checking the software for potential security
vulnerabilities and ensuring that it meets security standards.
6. Usability assessment: This involves evaluating the software's user interface, user
experience, and ease of use to ensure that it is user-friendly and meets the users'
needs. The results of the software assessment are documented and used to improve
the software's quality, functionality, and user experience.
The assessment process ensures that the software is reliable, secure, and efficient,
and meets the users' needs.
 Process Assessment Models.
Three widely used process assessment models:
1. Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI): CMMI is a well-known process
improvement model developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). It provides a
comprehensive framework for assessing and improving an organization's processes across
various domains, including software development, systems engineering, and project
management.
CMMI defines five maturity levels (1.Initial, 2.Managed, 3.Defined, 4.Quantitatively Managed,
and Optimizing) that represent increasing levels of process capability and organizational
maturity.

2. ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICE): ISO/IEC 15504, also known as Software Process Improvement and
Capability Determination (SPICE), is an international standard for assessing process
capability and maturity in software development and maintenance. SPICE provides a set of
process assessment models, including the Process Assessment Model (PAM) and the Process
Reference Model (PRM). The PAM defines a framework for process assessment and
identifies process attributes for evaluation, while the PRM provides a reference set of
processes to guide organizations in implementing best practices.
3. ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library): ITIL is a widely adopted framework
for IT service management. Although it is not strictly a process assessment model, ITIL
provides a set of best practices and guidelines for managing IT services. ITIL defines a series
of processes and functions that organizations can adopt to improve service quality, customer
satisfaction, and operational efficiency. While ITIL does not have defined maturity levels like
CMMI, it offers a structured approach for assessing and improving IT service management
 Software metrics
A software metric is a measure of software characteristics which are measurable or
countable. Software metrics are valuable for many reasons, including measuring software
performance, planning work items, measuring productivity, and many other uses.
Within the software development process, many metrics are that are all connected. Software
metrics are similar to the four functions of management: Planning, Organization, Control, or
Improvement.
Software metrics is a standard of measure that contains many activities which involve some
degree of measurement. It can be classified into three categories: product metrics, process
metrics, and project metrics.
product metrics
process metrics
project metrics

Product metrics describe the characteristics of the product such as size, complexity, design
features, performance, and quality level.
Process metrics can be used to improve software development and maintenance. Examples
include the effectiveness of defect removal during development, the pattern of testing defect
arrival, and the response time of the fix process.
Project metrics describe the project characteristics and execution. Examples include the
number of software developers, the staffing pattern over the life cycle of the software, cost,
schedule, and productivity.
 Scope of Software Metrics
Software metrics contains many activities which include the following
•Cost and effort estimation
•Productivity measures and model
•Data collection
•Quantity models and measures
•Reliability models
•Performance and evaluation models
•Structural and complexity metrics
•Capability – maturity assessment
•Management by metrics
•Evaluation of methods and tools

Software measurement is a diverse collection of these activities that range from models
predicting software project costs at a specific stage to measures of program structure.
Process Metrics: These are the measures of various characteristics of the software
development process. For example, the efficiency of fault detection. They are used to
measure the characteristics of methods, techniques, and tools that are used for developing
software
 Types of Metrics
Internal metrics: Internal metrics are the metrics used for measuring properties that are
viewed to be of greater importance to a software developer. For example, Lines of Code
(LOC) measure.
External metrics: External metrics are the metrics used for measuring properties that are
viewed to be of greater importance to the user, e.g., portability, reliability, functionality,
usability, etc.
Hybrid metrics: Hybrid metrics are the metrics that combine product, process, and
resource metrics. For example, cost per FP where FP stands for Function Point Metric.
Project metrics: Project metrics are the metrics used by the project manager to check the
project's progress. Data from the past projects are used to collect various metrics, like time
and cost; these estimates are used as a base of new software. Note that as the project
proceeds, the project manager will check its progress from time-to-time and will compare
the effort, cost, and time with the original effort, cost and time. Also understand that these
metrics are used to decrease the development costs, time efforts and risks. The project
quality can also be improved. As quality improves, the number of errors and time, as well as
cost required, is also reduced.