Software Cockpits, also known as Software Project Control Centers, support the management and controlling of software and system development projects and provide means for quantitative, measurement-based project control. Currently, many companies are developing simple control dashboards that are mainly based on Spreadsheet applications. Alternatively, they use solutions providing a fixed set of project control functionalities that cannot be sufficiently customized to their specific needs and goals. Specula is a systematic approach for defining reusable, customizable control components and instantiating them according to different organizational goals and characteristics based on the Quality Improvement Paradigm (QIP) and the Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach. This article gives an overview of the Specula approach, including the basic conceptual model, goal-oriented composition of control centers based on explicitly stated measurement goals, and a conceptual architecture supporting the approach. Related approaches are discussed, a practical usage example is given, and evaluation results from using Specula as part of industrial case studies are presented.
