Assessment is an act of reasoning. It is what we should do before taking a decision. However, when large amounts of data are involved, assessment gets complicated because we are just not equipped to handle many details.

Data is here to stay. Whether in the form of software systems or otherwise, we will only get more, so we better get good at dealing with it. We need tools to deal with the vastness of data, but these tools should bend around humans, rather than requiring humans to conform to them. Moose is such a tool. It offers an extensive, flexible and open-source platform for analyzing data in general and software systems in particular.

Tools are important, but we need to recognize that assessment is a human activity, and that we have to tackle it as such. Analysis tools should merely assist analysts by crunching data only when and how it is required. I call this approach the humane (or agile) assessment.

I recently launched http://humane-assessment.com, a site dedicated to it. Currently, it features only the booklet below. More will come in the near future.