World Climate - Checking for Vital Signs (Are there Any Signs of Life?)

Every sporting event uses scorekeeping as a record of progress during the game or season. Most professional athletes also play close attention to their overall standings compared to their competitors. This chapter defines some software terms and examples. To be successful, a company must measure and report its performance on a routine basis. Raytheon and Hughes Aircraft have compiled and published the returns they have received on their process improvement investments. The benefit most frequently noted concerns attitudinal changes. The morale and confidence of the process users improves significantly, and the process users experienced increased attention and respect from organizations external to theirs. Users also noted less overtime, less employee turnover, improved competitive advantage, and increased cooperation between functional groups as benefits that result from process improvement initiatives. The chapter presents an example from an actual subteam that documented how to extract metrics for project tracking effectiveness.