Effect of Software Structure Attributes on Software Development Productivity

Improving programming productivity and controlling software costs are very important tasks for an information system manager. Program structure is defined to be the organization of program elements within a program. In this research, we examine the relationship between programming productivity and program structure measures in a COBOL programming environment. Structure measures considered are span of control, levels of control, and their derivatives. The productivity measures considered are program development time and number of computer runs needed. Our results indicate that program development time is significantly associated with span of control and levels of control used in the program. Furthermore, programs having smaller span of control at the top (initial paragraphs) relative to that at the bottom (concluding paragraphs) are associated with the least development times. For illustration purposes, we showed two different program structures, one with low program development time and the other with high development time.