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Software organizations have been initiating measurement programs as part of their software process improvement practices which in turn increase the quality of the software products. However, high numbers of organizations reported their measurement programs as failures. One of the major difficulties they faced was stated to be the difficulty in deciding which set of measures to collect for different software entities; products, processes, and resources. In addition to what should be collected, organizations would like to collect as minimum number of measures as possible in order to be cost effective. Different goal based measures selection models have been introduced to aid in these, namely Goal Question Metric (GQM) is one of the most well known and adopted ones by software organizations. It facilitates measurement programs to define goals and then collect measures according to goals. However, the current approaches require being more structured and integrated to enable an effective software measurement process. ‘Structured’ means the goals, questions and measures as well as their vertical and horizontal relations are well-defined. A structured measurement process can be ‘integrated’ to the organization via establishing links between business and organizational goals and the measurement process. The whole process becomes more ‘effective’ as these goals and measures become traceable, and hence the mechanisms to prioritize and select the optimum set of measures could be established. In this research work our main focus is to evaluate goal based models and to develop a framework for a more effective measurement process, called Structured Optimized Measurement Selection (SOMS). As part of SOMS, alternative ways for goals prioritization and measures optimization are proposed. In order to make the whole process more efficient, a tool is developed as well. Both SOMS with different alternative prioritization and optimization techniques as well as the tool were evaluated by conducting case studies in a CMMI level 3 software development organization and the results are compared to a previous case study conducted on the same case by using other techniques which are extensions of GQM, i.e. namely Structured Prioritized Goals Questions Metrics (SPGQM) and Optimum Measures Set Decision (OMSD).

Information technology audit has proven to be a relatively new, less researched and rapidly expanding field among large, medium and even small businesses (commercial and non-commercial organisations). The implementation rate has grown rapidly and presents a huge growth market for audit consultants due to the need for transparency and compliance with regulation (for example: Sarbanes Oxley Act) and the need to be competitive in the marketplace. The audit process is being conducted mainly by consultants following a traditional process but using different proprietary approaches and mostly done manually. The purpose of this study is to present a scientific method to attach a purely measurement focus to the auditing process so as to provide an auditing as well as a quantitative outcome of the performance to the various IS entities that are audited using a novel automated method that can save organisations considerable resources in terms of time, cost and effort. The nature of the topic directed the researcher to three domains of information system (IS) namely studies on IS measurement, IT governance and software engineering. These areas provided information on the nature of IS measurement and the models used; the process of auditing/measurement and the corresponding frameworks used; the principles and methodology of measurement of IS entities; and measurement models used both in the software engineering and information systems domain. The review of the literature gave rise to the research question and the COBIT-GQM (Control Objectives for Information Technology Audit) – Goal Question Metrics) model. The research question that had emerged out of the four propositions “How can an IT audit or governance framework be used to measure the effectiveness of IS entities in a scientific manner using customised and goal oriented metrics” along with the nature of data sought (positivist), guided the researcher to qualitative research using multiple case studies to test the theoretical model (grounded theory) that had emerged out of the literature review. The theoretical model was automated (with a front end interface and a back-end database) and initially tested for usability issues. Then the common COBIT control objective that was obtained through an initial survey was entered into the database along with a set of questions and metrics (developed by the researcher by following the given GQM guidelines). This application that was demonstrated, and given for evaluation in four organisations gave rise to expected and surprising results. While the respondents expressed their desire to incorporate a customised and goal oriented measurement perspective to their IT audit/performance functions, that would save them time, effort and cost, numerous suggestions were provided that need to be incorporated into the model to make it fully functional. Notable among them are the need to embed a multiple contextual qualifying layer, incorporating benchmarking feature to the model, and the need to link this with the maturity model. These were incorporated into the model and a comprehensive model incorporating all the suggestions was created. The qualitative case study method being used here more to evaluate a theory, provided a sound base for future studies to generate hypothesis that can be evaluated using quantitative survey methods for the model to be generalised. IT auditing being a relatively new, less researched, conventional and high growth oriented field, the use of an innovative, comprehensive, automated and scientific method of audit and measurement method will satisfy the implied need for organisations to incorporate the diverse audit/measurement/ control/standards into one comprehensive method and this research is a major step in this direction. Since the new model is comprehensive and can be automated organisations can economise in terms of time, cost and effort. Irrespective of the nature of economic cycle the need for economising in terms of cost, time and effort is universal for all organisations.

Information technology audit has proven to be a relatively new, less researched and rapidly expanding field among large, medium and even small businesses (commercial and non-commercial organisations). The implementation rate has grown rapidly and presents a huge growth market for audit consultants due to the need for transparency and compliance with regulation (for example: Sarbanes Oxley Act) and the need to be competitive in the marketplace. The audit process is being conducted mainly by consultants following a traditional process but using different proprietary approaches and mostly done manually. The purpose of this study is to present a scientific method to attach a purely measurement focus to the auditing process so as to provide an auditing as well as a quantitative outcome of the performance to the various IS entities that are audited using a novel automated method that can save organisations considerable resources in terms of time, cost and effort. The nature of the topic directed the researcher to three domains of information system (IS) namely studies on IS measurement, IT governance and software engineering. These areas provided information on the nature of IS measurement and the models used; the process of auditing/measurement and the corresponding frameworks used; the principles and methodology of measurement of IS entities; and measurement models used both in the software engineering and information systems domain. The review of the literature gave rise to the research question and the COBIT-GQM (Control Objectives for Information Technology Audit) – Goal Question Metrics) model. The research question that had emerged out of the four propositions “How can an IT audit or governance framework be used to measure the effectiveness of IS entities in a scientific manner using customised and goal oriented metrics” along with the nature of data sought (positivist), guided the researcher to qualitative research using multiple case studies to test the theoretical model (grounded theory) that had emerged out of the literature review. The theoretical model was automated (with a front end interface and a back-end database) and initially tested for usability issues. Then the common COBIT control objective that was obtained through an initial survey was entered into the database along with a set of questions and metrics (developed by the researcher by following the given GQM guidelines). This application that was demonstrated, and given for evaluation in four organisations gave rise to expected and surprising results. While the respondents expressed their desire to incorporate a customised and goal oriented measurement perspective to their IT audit/performance functions, that would save them time, effort and cost, numerous suggestions were provided that need to be incorporated into the model to make it fully functional. Notable among them are the need to embed a multiple contextual qualifying layer, incorporating benchmarking feature to the model, and the need to link this with the maturity model. These were incorporated into the model and a comprehensive model incorporating all the suggestions was created. The qualitative case study method being used here more to evaluate a theory, provided a sound base for future studies to generate hypothesis that can be evaluated using quantitative survey methods for the model to be generalised. IT auditing being a relatively new, less researched, conventional and high growth oriented field, the use of an innovative, comprehensive, automated and scientific method of audit and measurement method will satisfy the implied need for organisations to incorporate the diverse audit/measurement/ control/standards into one comprehensive method and this research is a major step in this direction. Since the new model is comprehensive and can be automated organisations can economise in terms of time, cost and effort. Irrespective of the nature of economic cycle the need for economising in terms of cost, time and effort is universal for all organisations.