Victor R. Basili's contributions to software quality

This article deals with Victor R. Basili's contributions to software quality. Basili's contributions cover three broad areas: research in the 1970s and early 1980s on software measurement and the Goal Question Metric (GQM) model, research in the 1980s and 1990s on these measurement ideas' maturation into a software engineering model of empirical studies, including the development of the Quality Improvement Paradigm (QIP) and the influence of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Software Engineering Laboratory, and research since 1990 in the Experience Factory as a model for creating learning organizations for continuous software process improvement. Some of Basili's most important contributions are in measuring software development processes and products and gifted the community with an invaluable tool: the GQM approach. The GQM approach is based on the assumption that for an organization to measure its products and processes usefully, it must first specify goals for itself and its projects.