Re: measuring productivity and QUALITY

[Gina Hertel <Ghertel -at- ALPHA88 -dot- COM>]

This brings me to a related question...
How do all of you measure QUALITY in a quantitative way?
The only OBJECTIVE metric I can think of so far is:
decreased number of support calls.

Anyone know of any others?


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miki Magyar [SMTP:MDM0857 -at- MCDATA -dot- COM]
> Sent: Friday, February 20, 1998 3:04 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      measuring productivity
>
> Kathy Borgtodd asked " how do you measure productivity in your department?
> "
>
> Good question! Usually the answer is, we don't - we get evaluated on
> whether or not we got the manual/help/etc. out on time, on budget, and
> with approval from the client reviewers. Since we work on any given
> project as a team, and are subject to any number of external constraints
> beyond our control, this is about the only thing that makes sense.
>
> 'Productivity' on an assembly line makes sense. 'Productivity' in Tech
> Pubs needs to be clearly defined.  Or better yet, ignored. What is the
> purpose of the measurement? Who is going to use the information, in what
> way? The answer is in the question - if you are looking for process
> improvement, 'productivity' is not necessarily what you want to ask about.
>
> That said, yeah but, and on the other hand -
> Each case is different. If you're churning out updates of a catalog,
> 'productivity' may be a valid measure.
> You can't make improvements until you know where you are. Just make sure
> your baseline and metrics make sense for your purpose.
> If you're trying to evaluate tools, 'productivity' may be a key factor.
> Again, be sure you know what you're measuring.
>
> I'm looking forward to the discussion on this one!
>
> Regards,
> Miki
> mikim -at- mcdata -dot- com
>
> !
>
>