Software Metrics: Best Practices for Successful IT Management

8.4 "WE NEED A PLAN!"

The feasibility team will also need to be given an initial direction. In other words they should be given a high level plan or requirement for at least the rest of the first stage. This is the responsibility of the initiator together with the customer authority and should encompass the following points:

• The scope of the work. Are they to look at the whole organization or only part of it? What are the main drivers or triggers that the organization wishes to address through the use of Software Metrics? In other words, what problems are we trying to solve?

• The requirements. The feasibility team should be tasked to determine the needs of the organization though some initial market research. They should also be tasked to bring knowledge of Software Metrics to the organization by familiarizing themselves with the subject and to highlight possible benefits to the organization. Finally they should be tasked to provide a plan for the way forward geared to the needs of the organization.

• The timescale. In an ideal world the feasibility team would be able to prepare their own low level plan and this should determine their timescale. In reality there will be time pressure on the feasibility study and on the whole implementation program. The feasibility team will need to familiarize themselves with a new subject as well as identify the relevance of this to the organization.

The customer authority should be realistic and flexible but should give guidance to the team about when results of this first stage will be expected.