Goal-oriented quantitative software project control

Detecting and reacting to critical project states in order to achieve planned goals is one key issue in performing a software development project successfully and staying competitive as a software development company. Software Project Control Centers support the management and controlling of software and system development projects and provide a single point of project control. Currently, many companies are developing their own control centers (typically simple dashboards). However, support for identifying suitable indicators and integrating appropriate custom-tailored control mechanisms into control centers is widely missing. This thesis will introduce the Specula project control approach for goal-oriented composition of project control centers. The focus is on how to describe and combine control components and how to select the right components based on explicitly defined measurement goals. The approach was evaluated in industrial case studies including 9 projects from different domains with different existing project control mechanisms in place. The validation demonstrated, for instance, that 80% of plan deviations and project risks were found earlier than when using a traditional approach to project control. Moreover, 20% of the deviations and risks found by Specula had not been detected at all by the traditional approach.