The Use of Metrics

Our project does a lot of estimation for new work we shall perform. The customer uses that information to determine how many new things we can handle per release. Recently there has been a push to collect actuals on how much time we spend on this new work. Must be some type of CMMi activity.

This is the trick for collecting metrics. You don't want the job of collecting the metrics to take up a lot of time. You also want it to be accurate. I remember when I used to track the time we spent fixing each bug. I had to collect all the info. Then I would put out reports on the subject. I did this until I was able to convince my boss that it was not time well spent.

I had thought that the goal for this new metrics collection would be to fine tune our estimation process. That way we can have more accurate projections on how long new work will take. My manager said he thinks this will help us report status on the new work as well. Let's just hope I don't have to start spending my life collecting metrics from the team.