In Chapter 9 we discussed quality management models with examples of inprocess metrics and reports. The models cover both the front-end design and coding activities and the back-end testing phases of development. The focus of the in-process data and reports, however, are geared toward the design review and code inspection data, although testing data is included. This chapter provides a more detailed discussion of the in-process metrics from the testing perspective. 1 These metrics have been used in the IBM Rochester software development laboratory for some years with continual evolution and improvement, so there is ample implementation experience with them. This is important because although there are numerous metrics for software testing, and new ones being proposed frequently, relatively few are supported by sufficient experiences of industry implementation to demonstrate their usefulness. For each metric, we discuss its purpose, data, interpretation, and use, and provide a graphic example based on real-life data. Then we discuss in-process quality management vis-à-vis these metrics and revisit the metrics 271 1. This chapter is a modified version of a white paper written for the IBM corporate-wide Software Test Community Leaders (STCL) group, which was published as "In-process Metrics for Software Testing," in
Churchman [1971] defines inquiry as an activity that produces knowledge. He examines the epistemologies of five schools of philosophy from the perspective of general systems theory, asking the question as to whether each is suitable as the basis for the design of computer-based "inquiring systems." He considers systems design and design theory in some detail. We believe that Churchman's inquiring systems can form the basis for the design of knowledge management systems and that the IS research community has hardly tapped the potential of inquiring systems in that regard. Mason and Mitroff [1973] brought inquiring systems into the IS literature early on, essentially making the work endogenous to the field. We argue that building on inquiring systems can contribute to developing IS as a discipline by maintaining continuity in research and developing a theory that IS can call its own. We believe that the lack of use of Churchman's work may be due to its lack of visibility in recent years and attempt to remedy that by summarizing the basics of the inquirers in some detail, trying not to interpret, but to remain faithful to the original. The paper encourages readers to study the original and develop their own notion of how the inquirers might be used in knowledge management work. There are probably as many different perspectives on how inquiring systems could support KMS as there are IS researchers willing to study them. We would like to encourage a proliferation of such perspectives.
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