Our world and our society are shaped and increasingly governed by software. Since software is so ubiquitous and embedded in nearly everything we are doing, we need to stay in control. We have to make sure that the systems and their software are running as we intend - or better. Software measurement is the discipline that assures that we stay in control.

In this volume, Ebert and Dumke provide a comprehensive introduction to software measurement. They detail knowledge and experiences about software measurement in an easily understood, hands-on presentation. Brief references are embedded from world-renown experts such as Alain Abran, Luigi Buglione, Manfred Bundschuh, David N. Card, Ton Dekkers, Robert L. Glass, David A. Gustafson, Marek Leszak, Peter Liggesmeyer, Andreas Schmietendorf, Harry Sneed, Charles Symons, Ruediger Zarnekow and Horst Zuse. Many examples and case studies are provided from Global 100 companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Atos Origin, Axa, Bosch, Deloitte, Deutsche Telekom, Shell, Siemens and Vector Consulting.

This combination of methodologies and applications makes the book ideally suited for both professionals in the software industry and for scientists looking for benchmarks and experiences. Besides the many practical hints and checklists readers will also appreciate the large reference list, which includes links to metrics communities where project experiences are shared. Further information, continuously updated, can also be found on the Web site related to this book: http://metrics.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/.

Christof Ebert is managing director and partner at Vector Consulting Services, has authored several books in software engineering and serves on editorial boards of several scientific journals and as a frequent keynote speaker at conferences.

Reiner Dumke is professor of software engineering at the university of Magdeburg, Germany, and speaker of the German informatics society (GI) expert group on metrics.

Making Measurement a Success A Primer.- Measurement Foundations.- Planning the Measurement Process.- Performing the Measurement Process.- Introducing a Measurement Program.- Estimation of Size, Effort and Cost.- Project Management.- Quality Control and Assurance.- Measuring Software Systems.- Improving Processes and Products.- Controlling for IT and Software.- Measurement Repositories.- Empirical Laws and Rules of Thumb.- Getting yet more Information.