COMPUTER AIDED SYSTEM FOR MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT, OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE

Abstract

Software cost today, represents a significant percentage of computing systems. Inadequate monitoring and evaluation of software development, operations and maintenance could lead to very high cost, failure of projects to meet the targeted or scheduled time, production of low quality software and poor user satisfaction among others. Monitoring and evaluation of software development, operations and maintenance are fraught with a lot of problems among which, is the determination of the appropriate measures of cost, duration, quality and benefits. Unlike in the case of hardware where most of these metrics could be measured directly, most of the metrics associated with software development, operations and maintenance are intangible, that is, they could not be measured directly. This situation probably explains why there has been little efforts at standardising the monitoring and evaluation of software development, operations and maintenance. In this study, we adopt the use of Project Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and the Critical Path Method (CPM) for the estimation of software schedule and cost. The use of PERT/CPM enables us to determine the boundary times like earliest start, latest start, earliest completion, latest completion, total float and free float as well as the critical path of the software life cycle. Piecewise cost-duration curve was used to determine the cost of schedule. McCall's software quality factors and quality metrics are used to derive the data used for software quality performance evaluation. A a software package christened CASMESDOM for monitoring and . evaluating the three major phases of software life cycle is developed and implemented in Paradox Relational Database Management System environment. CASMESDOM is menu-driven, user friendly, interactive and intelligent. In CASMESDOM, the practical use of PERT/CPM and the McCall's quality metrics in the estimation of software metrics was demonstrated using the Federal University of Technology; Akure (FUTA) Payroll System.