Measurement program success factors revisited

Success factors for measurement programs as identified in the literature typically focus on the ‘internals’ of the measurement program: incremental implementation, support from management, a well-planned metrics framework, and so on. However, for a measurement program to be successful within its larger organizational context, it has to generate value for the organization. This implies that attention should also be given to the proper mapping of some identifiable organizational problem onto the measurement program, and the translation back of measurement results to organizational actions. We have extended the well-known ‘internal’ success factors for software measurement programs with four ‘external’ success factors. These success factors are aimed at the link between the measurement program and the usage of the measurement results. In this paper we show how this combined set of internal and external success factors explains the success or failure of five industrial measurement programs.