{"id":384,"date":"2019-11-22T10:30:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T10:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/?p=384"},"modified":"2019-11-22T10:30:02","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T10:30:02","slug":"goals-kpis-effects-or-which-door-should-i-choose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/?p=384","title":{"rendered":"Goals – KPIs – Effects, or which door should I choose?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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picture: Image by Arek Socha<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alice<\/em><\/strong>: Which\u00a0<\/em>way should I go<\/em><\/strong>? Cat: That depends on where you are\u00a0<\/em>going<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em>Alice<\/em><\/strong>: I don’t know. Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which\u00a0<\/em>way<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0you\u00a0<\/em>go<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/em> Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many companies like to think that they need metrics to improve, which is often not true – they only improve when they show effects. This post is about my observations what kind of metrics lead to effects and how to think about the effects. So, choosing the right measure is mostly about choosing the right goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently I’ve been helping organizations to design measurement programs from scratch. Every time I encounter an organization which tries to establish the program, they start somewhere in the middle: not the end, not the beginning, but in the middle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\norder to illustrate this in a good way, I’ve looked at the Swedish Innovation\nAgency Vinnova’s effect-logic measurement: https:\/\/www.vinnova.se\/globalassets\/utlysningar\/2018-02242\/omgangar\/mall-effektlogik.pdf916281.pdf<\/a> (in Swedish). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, that kind of set-up of measurements requires two levels of measurements, but let’s start from the entire chain. The chain is presented in figure below. The figure is my own intepretation of Vinnova’s framework. In particular I add the goals, which are extremely important in measurement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First, we need to\ndefine which goals we want to address. Then, we plan which activities we need\nto conduct to achieve these goals. Then we define the results from the project\n– what we deliver to address the goals. The results can be measured and quantified.\nThe results also lead to some effects, which is often something that we can do\nthanks to these results. Finally, these new events and activities can lead to\nquantifiable effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how does this\ntranslate to the field of software engineering and software measurement? Let’s\nconsider an example: we want to increase the\nquality of source code integrated to the main branch. We plan a project where\nwe study the code review and testing practices. We deliver new methods which\ncan speed up the code reviews. Our first measure, which we can turn into an\nindicator, is the duration of the review. The effect of this, as we anticipate,\nis the fact that the number of features delivered to the main branch will be\nhigher (our effect measurement, or PI). Finally, the long term effect is that\nwe can get more customers as we have more features. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can easily\nidentify measures and indicators here. This is all thanks to the fact that we\nput our story in a specific way – starting from the goal and ending in the\neffects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, instead of\nasking what to measure, first look into the goals and expected effects. Once\nyou have these, it will be easy to identify the measures and indicators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alice: Which\u00a0way should I go? Cat: That depends on where you are\u00a0going.\u00a0Alice: I don’t know. Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which\u00a0way\u00a0you\u00a0go.\u201d Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland Many companies like to think that they need metrics to improve, which is often not true – they only improve when they show effects. This post is about my … Continue reading “Goals – KPIs – Effects, or which door should I choose?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metrics.blogg.gu.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}