So I’m in the process of going through the Practical Software and Systems Measurement Guide (http://www.psmsc.com/PSMGuide.asp) for the first time since university, and now that I’m actually doing it off my own bat I’m realising that there’s a crapload to read if you want to actually take something from it.

It’s quite unfortunate really - I’m reading a guide on how to implement measurement; reading how “measurement is good” is pretty much preaching to the converted.

But that aside, it’s nice to have a change and get back to my metrics-obsessed roots (see the archive for my previous articles/rants on estimation).

Why am I doing this? Well, we’re in the process of ‘redeveloping’ the system development process in my organisation because the one we currently have either doesn’t exist or doesn’t provide any benefit, depending on who you ask. The three options that really exist for a new process are:

    •Define a set of outputs that must be produced (leaving the process up to the team);

    •Define a small set of processes, any of which can (and must) be used; and

    •Leave the process up to the team but define metrics that must be used so we can judge the relative success of different teams and processes.

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to delve back into the world of metrics, and so it is that I am reading the PSM Guide, trying to refresh my memory but remain sane.

My initial thoughts when presented with this opportunity ran something along these lines:

1. 1.It’s gotta be the PSM Guide or Humphrey’s Team Software Process.
   

2. 2.Maybe this can help kick my dysfunctional project into line.
   

After verifying the first thought by a number of open-ended discussions (“if you wanted to collect metrics on how your project was going, what would you use?”) and, of course, Google; I decided that the best way to demonstrate the success (or failure) of a metrics-based approach would be to put them into play in my current project. All things being equal it should tell us that we spend too long making decisions, cannot gather requirements quickly enough to meet our production deadline, and cannot get acceptance testing completed early enough to have results feed into the next incremental release.

So here I am, trying to select a handful of the most appropriate indicators to use for my project and decide whether I should be measuring them monthly (recommended by PSM) or fortnightly (potentially more useful so I’ll have something to say about the process of collecting and aggregating measures in a month or two’s time).

Did I mention the time is currently 2359? I’m going to bed so I can claim I went to bed before midnight.

Stay tuned...