Implementing Goal-Driven Measurement

This three-day course teaches managers and practitioners how to identify and define indicators (i.e., graphical displays) and measures that directly support an organization's business, process improvement, and project goals. The methods taught are relevant to product development, process improvement, and project management. Using lectures and exercises, participants learn how to determine success, progress, and analysis indicators that show traceability from an organization's high-level business goals right down to the precise data collected, ensuring relevance and traceability from goals to data. Participants also learn how to define measures and indicators that are aligned with the organization's business processes and support the measurement requirements of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Measurement and Analysis process area. With useful examples, real-life experiences from the field, and a class notebook filled with helpful checklists, templates, and reference materials, participants walk away with the tools necessary to lead goal-driven software measurement processes at their own organizations.

Who should attend?

• project managers and process managers
• software engineering process group members
• process improvement working group members
• software measurement team members
• professionals who need reliable quantitative information to guide acquiring, supporting, planning, or tracking software systems

Topics

• goal-driven software management
• goal identification
• attributes of good indicators: representing data to communicate and inform
• success indicators
• strategies and activities to achieve the goals
• analysis and progress indicators
• identification and definition of the data elements needed to construct indicators
• indicator template for precise documentation
• action plan creation
• examples of what others have done

Objectives

• define and use goal-driven measures to manage and improve software projects, products, and processes
• establish a measurement program that is aligned with the organization's business processes
• define measures and indicators that support the measurement requirements of the CMMI Measurement and Analysis process area
• start and lead measurement activities in the context of software process improvement programs

Prerequisites

Before registering for this course, participants should be familiar with projects or processes from their home organizations for which measurements could provide guiding information.

Materials

Students will receive a course notebook that contains copies of the presentation materials, class exercises, templates, key references, URLs, and other useful materials discussed in class.

Schedule

This three-day course meets at the following times:
Days 1-2, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (U.S. locations)
Day 3, 8:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. (U.S. locations)

Days 1-2, 9:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. (non-U.S. locations)
Day 3, 9:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. (non-U.S. locations)