Better Software Magazine Articles
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The Hawthorne Effect Ever wondered what productivity experiments on factory workers in the early twentieth century have in common with today's adoption of agile practices? Lee sheds some light on the "process of process" and the importance of retrospectives as catalysts for change. |
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What's on Your Dashboard? Just because a metric is easy to capture doesn't mean it is useful. The metrics that are really needed are the ones that can help you make good decisions. Find out how to establish a project dashboard with meaningful metrics that will guide your project safely to its destination without getting bogged down in an endless pursuit of unnecessary information. |
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Metrics You Can Bet On An old adage says that you cannot manage what you cannot measure, but Mike Cohn thinks differently. Here, he offers suggestions on when to use metrics and when you can manage without, as well as some guidelines to help you choose your metrics carefully. |
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Code Improvement: Five Practices to Help Spread the Joy of Great Code Design The software we produce is like the neighborhoods in which we live--the blueprints aren't as important as the enjoyment of simply using it. The best design brings joy to both those who create it and those who use it. Jeff Grover and Zhon Johansen detail five practices to help you spread the joy. |
Jeff Grover
September 5, 2006 |
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Metrics Motivation Typical metrics are used to predict an outcome by comparing plans to actual results. They are objective and don't influence what you are trying to measure. Biased metrics, on the other hand, are a valuable tool for deliberately altering behavior to improve the performance of a group. Find out how biased metrics can be used on your projects to pinpoint problems in specific areas and to influence people to fix them. |
Jan Scott
December 29, 2005 |
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Measurements that Matter No one starts a project with the goal of failing, but some metrics experts claim that 80 percent of software metrics initiatives fail. Just as your software project has goals for success, you should have goals for success in your metrics initiatives. Find out what you can do to better your chance for success. |
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Leveraging Inspections You can improve your inspection process, moving from 50 percent to as much as 90 percent defect removal before entering test. Learn how to record and analyze the right data. |
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Show and Tell It's critical that you discover the defects before your customers do. Metrics give you plenty of data, but creating charts and graphs that properly showcase this data can be difficult. In this article, read about six techniques that can help make this task a lot easier. |
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Metrics That Matter: Making Measurements Meaningful for Everyone Metrics are only worthwhile if you review and use them. Do your quality reports go directly from the inbox to the trash can? A quality metrics program can be a great asset to your organization. Engineering, sales, and the company overall can benefit from having such a program. This article will help you explore ways to make measurements meaningful outside of QA. |
Marsha Holliday
March 5, 2003 |
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Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations Don Gray recommends Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations by Robert D. Austin. The book is not a five-step program toward measurement success; instead, it gives an in-depth look at what makes or breaks measurement systems. The book presents information in an intuitive way; if you understand algebra and simple logic, you will understand what Austin is presenting. |
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