The Software Quality Profile
• SEI Report
Publisher
Software Engineering Institute
Topic or Tag
Abstract
The software community has been slow to use data to measure software quality. This paper discusses the reasons for this problem and describes a way to use process measurements to assess product quality. The basic process measures are time, size, and defects. When these data are gathered for every engineer and for every step of the development process, a host of quality measures can be derived to evaluate software quality. Extensive data from the Personal Software Process (PSP) are used to derive the profiles of software processes that generally produce high quality software products. By examining these profiles, one can judge the likelihood that a program will have defects found in its subsequent testing or use. Examples are given of defect profiles, together with guidelines for their use.
Cite This SEI Report
Humphrey, W. (2009, October 29). The Software Quality Profile. Retrieved September 11, 2026, from https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/.
@techreport{humphrey_2009,
author={Humphrey, Watts},
title={The Software Quality Profile},
month={Oct},
year={2009},
institution={Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University},
url={https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/},
note={Accessed: 2026-Sep-11}
}
Humphrey, Watts. "The Software Quality Profile." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, October 29, 2009. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/.
W. Humphrey, "The Software Quality Profile," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, 29-Oct-2009 [Online]. Available: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/. [Accessed: 11-Sep-2026].
Humphrey, Watts. "The Software Quality Profile." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, 29 Oct. 2009. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/. Accessed 11 Sep. 2026.
Humphrey, Watts. The Software Quality Profile. Software Engineering Institute. 2009. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/the-software-quality-profile/