The Gateway project was a collaborative project with Logica Cambridge, Integral Solutions Ltd. and Informatics. The project started in April 1990. It aimed to meet the need for better defined and more standard measures for evaluating the KBS elements of system performance; for standard and systematic guidelines for assessing the suitability of a knowledge-based approach and quantifying its feasibility; and for sound comparative evidence from evaluation to support the case for KBS in preference to some other approach.
The two-year project addressed some of the main issues in software project management, such as cost estimation, benefit analysis, risk assessment, and quality assurance. The approach was to accommodate qualitative and quantitative measures. Many of the metrics relied on the assessment of parameters whose values were on ordinal scales.
The key was the Project Model which allowed measurable attributes to be placed within a coherent information repository. Much of this framework had been implemented as a prototype project information gathering tool by one of the partners.
The Cost Model mapped knowledge about the application domain, the development team, the organizational environment and other indicators onto quantitative bands for required effort. The Benefit Model assisted in establishing a business case, and in assessing the feasibility of a project: for example, are the benefits tangible or intangible, short-term or long-term, will they be savings in resources or open up new markets? The Risk Model dealt with technological risks, as well as external risks. Its major purpose was to make managers aware of high risk items and, possibly, to assign a risk vector to a project. Another way of using the risk model was to guide the project manager in alleviating some risks, and checking later on whether these actions had actually resulted in a lower risk.
The Quality Model could be used to look at issues such as usability, maintainability, and performance. Comparing the actuals with the required values enabled users to monitor the level of quality achieved.
The main result was a handbook for practical use which described the metrics models and their modes of use and presented the metrics in tabular formats.
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