Metrics to improve control in outsourcing software development projects

Measurements serve as vital instruments to control projects involving software development outsourcing. However, managers have found it difficult to develop and implement effective measurement programs, in part because guidelines for choosing among concrete measure-ments are scarce. We address this gap between research and practice by examining frame-works and guidelines in the software process improvement literature. Our contribution com-prises a framework that provides a set of measurements (selected from the research litera-ture) for control of software development in a cooperative setting and a set of principles and guidelines for the design of an information infrastructure that provides managers with control information. We have validated our approach by showing our framework to an expert in out-sourcing projects, who confirmed its potential