The EMISQ Method - Expert Based Evaluation of Internal Software Quality

Abstract

Internal software quality, e.g. the quality of code, has great impact on the overall quality of software. Besides well known manual inspection and review techniques more recent approaches utilize tool-based static code for the evaluation of internal software quality. Despite the high potential of static code analyzers the application of tools alone cannot replace well founded expert opinion. Knowledge, experience and fair judgement is indispensable for a valid, reliable quality assessment, which is accepted by software developers and managers. The EMISQ method (evaluation method for internal software quality), guides the assessment process for all stakeholders of an evaluation project. The method is supported by a tool that assists evaluators with their analysis and rating tasks and provides support for generating a code quality report. The application of the method in a pilot project has shown its applicability.