Identify Metrics Customers

The first step of the “12 Steps to Useful Software Metrics” is to identify the customers for each metric. The customer of the metric is the person (or people) who will be making decisions or taking action based upon the metric; the person/people who needs the information supplied by the metric.

There are many different types of customers for a metrics program. This adds complexity to the program because each customer may have different information requirements. Customers may include:

•   Functional Management: Interested in applying greater control to the software development process, reducing risk and maximizing return on investment.

•   Project Management: Interested in being able to accurately predict and control project size, effort, resources, budgets and schedules.  Interested in controlling the projects they are in charge of and communicating facts to their management.

•    Software Engineers/Programmers: The people that actually do the software development.

Interested in making informed decisions about their work and work products. These people are responsible for collecting a significant amount of the data required for the metrics program.

•   Test Managers/Testers:  The people responsible for performing the verification and validation activities.  Interested in finding as many new defects as possible in the time allocated to testing and in obtaining confidence that the software works as specified. These people are also responsible for collecting a significant amount of the required data.

•   Specialists: Individuals performing specialized functions (e.g., Marketing, Software Quality Assurance, Process Engineering, Software Configuration Management, Audits and Assessments, Customer Technical Assistance).  Interested in quantitative information upon which they can base their decisions, finding and recommendations.

•   Customers/Users: Interested in on-time delivery of high quality software products and in reducing the over-all cost of ownership.

If a metric does not have a customer, it should not be produced. Metrics are expensive to collect, report, and analyze so if no one is using a metric, producing it is a waste of time and money.

The customers’ information requirements should always drive the metrics program. Otherwise, we may end up with a product without a market and with a program that wastes time and money. By recognizing potential customers and involving those customers early in the metric definition effort, the chances of success are greatly increased.