GQM

GQM, the initialism for "goal, question, metric", is an established goal-oriented approach to software metrics to improve and measure software quality.
History.
GQM has been promoted by Victor Basili of the University of Maryland, College Park and the Software Engineering Laboratory at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center after supervising a Ph.D. thesis by Dr. David M. Weiss. Dr. Weiss' work was inspired by the work of Albert Endres at IBM Germany.
Method.
GQM defines a measurement model on three levels:
GQM stepwise.
Another interpretation of the procedure is:
Sub-steps.
Sub-steps are needed for each phases. To complete the definition phase, an eleven-step procedure is proposed:
Templates.
GQM templates are a structured way of specifying goals. 
Example 1.
A GQM template may contains the following fields:
Example 2.
GQM template to express the goal of a study of software engineering:
The purpose of this study is to "characterize" the effect of "pair programming" on "programmer effort" and "program quality" from the point of view of "software managers" in the context of "a small web-development company".
Recent developments.
The GQM+Strategies approach was developed by Victor Basili and a group of researchers from the Fraunhofer Society. It is based on the Goal Question Metric paradigm and adds the capability to create measurement programs that ensure alignment between business goals and strategies, software-specific goals, and measurement goals.
Novel application of GQM towards business data are described. Specifically in the software engineering areas of Quality assurance and Testing, GQM is used.