Quality Metrics

Purpose

Quality metrics are the objective measures used to determine whether or not the project and its components are meeting the goals as established early in the project.

Application

Quality metrics are set early in the project and incorporate some means of measurement that allows for regular interim assessments of progress toward the established objective. Once established, the metrics are used to highlight variance and areas of the project that may require remediation. They can be used to focus on a single area of attention or on multiple areas of concern.

Content

Quality metrics come in a wide variety of forms and formats, largely dependent on the project type. They consist of an objective measure of the preproject state and a related measure on the same scale of the desired postproject state. An environmental remediation project, for example, might cite the parts per million (ppm) of a given contaminant and the desired postproject ppm count. In a drug research project, a certain level of long-term stability for the output might be measured. For a deliverable within a project, the metrics might include timing, fit, finish, or capacity. Quality metrics can be virtually anything relating to the project or component’s desired state that can be effectively measured.

Approaches

Because quality metrics are measurable, they are most often reflected in bar or line graphs for comparative analysis. They are clear and simple. The key is to be able to identify, in a metric form, what constitutes project success.

Considerations

Some quality metrics reports may have dozens of tables, each displaying a different subset of information. Effective use of quality metrics means ensuring that each of the metrics chosen is a meaningful measure to determine the potential success of the project.