ABSTRACT
In Chapter 9, we identified the primary measures (productivity, duration, cost, and quality) for measuring and monitoring IT performance and we learned the importance of including a size measure as one of the primary measures. This chapter builds upon that information and expands into the area of measuring the effectiveness of IT. The focus of this chapter is on measuring the software development and maintenance component of IT. We will discuss how to measure IT effectiveness through the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. We will examine what data needs to be collected, how it should be analyzed, and some of the ways in which it can be reported effectively. One of the keys to measuring IT effectiveness is to establish a performance profile. Performance profiles are comprised of key attributes that influence the effectiveness (productivity and quality) of IT practices. Once a baseline of performance is developed these profiles become a valuable tool for measuring effectiveness and for predicting outcomes. Furthermore, from this baseline of information IT Providers can begin to develop estimating capabilities that will increase their ability to estimate workloads more accurately and develop and deploy software more effectively. Again, as in Chapter 9, we will focus on application development and maintenance for our discussion and examples.
