Process Metrics
by George Dinwiddie, 25 July 2011 | Agile Teams
This post is from George Dinwiddie's blog by George Dinwiddie. Click here to see the original post in full.
My good friend Jack Ganssle commented over at EETimes (also available on the TechOnline India site, with different comments) about my recent post on process standards. In it, Jack cautions against relying on “a strong feeling that ‘things are better.’” He recommends using measurements to bring it back to the realm of engineering.Bob Pease, analog engineer at National Semiconductor and writer at EDN Magazine, used to say, “when something seems funny, measure the amount of funny.” That’s easier done in the engineering domain than the people domain, of course.
These two simple guidelines will help:
1. Measure the things you really care about. Too many people collect numbers that are based on guesses or on indefinable units. If you’re measuring productivity, figure out a way to measure delivered, working features, not “story points” or other estimates. Jack gave an example where, to increase the number of circuit boards being produced, the technicians were not bothering to repair the boards that didn’t work. They were tossing them aside, creating a pile of waste inventory. In Jack’s...read more
