Improving the quality of information for software project management

Background. The goal of software measurement and analysis is to produce information for the people performing technical and managerial tasks. Information-centric assessment can identify opportunities to better meet that goal. This paper presents a study into the assessment of Information Quality for Software Project Management using generic and targeted information quality models. The setting for the study is a university software project management subject in which the students must complete a major exercise as part of the subject that attempts to replicate real-world project planning. Methods. After the exercise has been completed, the students are surveyed about the quality of the information with which they were supplied to complete the project planning exercise. The survey instrument is based on a generic model of information quality and a targeted model that focuses on the information for specific planning tasks. The study has been run with two cohorts of students and was run with a third cohort at the end of May 2007. Results. Improvement opportunities were identified through the 2006 assessment. These improvements were implemented for the third student cohort and the success of these improvements evaluated. The information quality assessment methods used in this study are likely to be of benefit to software project managers by providing the means to identify and remedy deficiencies in the information that they use to carry out their activities.