Questions to Ask When Generating and Reviewing Metrics

Level 4

Organizational Process Performance

153. Trends in the organization's process performance with respect to changes in work products and task attributes (e.g., size growth, effort, schedule, and quality)

Quantitative Project Management

154. Time between failures

155. Critical resource utilization

156. Number and severity of defects in the released product

157. Number and severity of customer complaints concerning the provided service

158. Number of defects removed by product verification activities (perhaps by type of verification, such as peer reviews and testing)

159. Defect escape rates

160. Number and density of defects by severity found during the first year following product delivery or start of service

161. Cycle time

162. Amount of rework time

163. Requirements volatility (i.e., number of requirements changes per phase)

164. Ratios of estimated to measured values of the planning parameters (e.g., size, cost, and schedule)

165. Coverage and efficiency of peer reviews (i.e., number/amount of products reviewed compared to total number, and number of defects found per hour )

166. Test coverage and efficiency (i.e., number/amount of products tested compared to total number, and number of defects found per hour)

167. Effectiveness of training (i.e., percent of planned training completed and test scores)

168. Reliability (i.e., mean time-to-failure usually measured during integration and systems test)

169. Percentage of the total defects inserted or found in the different phases of the project life cycle

170. Percentage of the total effort expended in the different phases of the project life cycle

171. Profile of subprocesses under statistical management (i.e., number planned to be under statistical management, number currently being statistically managed, and number that are statistically stable)

172. Number of special causes of variation identified

173. The cost over time for the quantitative process management activities compared to the plan

174. The accomplishment of schedule milestones for quantitative process management activities compared to the approved plan (i.e., establishing the process measurements to be used on the project, determining how the process data will be collected, and collecting the process data)

175. The cost of poor quality (e.g., amount of rework, re-reviews and re-testing)

176. The costs for achieving quality goals (e.g., amount of initial reviews, audits , and testing)