GQM, the initialism for goal, question, metric, is an established goal-oriented approach to software metrics to improve and measure software quality.

History

GQM has been promoted by Victor Basili of the University of Maryland, College Park and the Software Engineering Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center after supervising a Ph.D. thesis by Dr. David M. Weiss. Dr. Weiss' work was inspired by the work of Albert Endres at IBM Germany.

Method

GQM defines a measurement model on three levels:

GQM stepwise

Another interpretation of the procedure is:

Sub-steps

Sub-steps are needed for each phases. To complete the definition phase, an eleven-step procedure is proposed:

Recent developments

The GQM+Strategies approach was developed by Victor Basili and a group of researchers from the Fraunhofer Society. It is based on the Goal Question Metric paradigm and adds the capability to create measurement programs that ensure alignment between business goals and strategies, software-specific goals, and measurement goals. Novel application of GQM towards business data are described. Specifically in the software engineering areas of Quality assurance and Testing, GQM is used.