Using Trac for Empirical Data Collection and Analysis in Developing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Systems

This paper describes practical case studies of using Trac as a platform for collecting empirical data in the development of small and medium-sized enterprise systems. Project managers have been using various empirical data such as size, development efforts and number of bugs found. These data are vital for management, although the cost entailed is not small in preparing an effective combination of measurement tools, procedures and continuous monitoring to collect reliable data, and many small and medium-sized projects are constrained by budget limitations. This paper describes practical examples of data collection at low cost in the development of two enterprise systems. The examples consist of a small project (5 development personnel at the peak period, down to 3 during the maintenance) and a medium-sized project (80 personnel at the peak, down to 28), used to develop two different enterprise systems. Over 29 months, ten basic metrics and seven derived metrics were collected regarding effort, size and quality, and were used for progress management, estimation, and quality assurance.