The Good, The Bad, and The Metrics

Last week Mike Lyles & Jay Philips presented the “The Good, The Bad, and The Metrics” at STPCon Spring 2014. Below is the info from the presentation and the corresponding slides:

Session Info:
Has your organization ever considered replacing a tester that did not write, for example, 15 test cases per day? Is the testing team blamed if defect leakage is greater than 5% into production? What drives decisions like these? The common thread in these examples is “Test Metrics”

Test Metrics… Everyone has an opinion about them. Some believe they are the most valuable way to communicate the results of testing. Some think that they are useless, misleading, and damaging to the communication of test results. Some believe that without measurement you are not managing the effort. And some believe that bad metrics are worse than no metrics at all.

Where does your organization fit in the metrics and measurement debates? Is your team aligned? Do you agree with the team? Do you use a reporting process for test results? Are you forced to report on metrics you don’t believe are valuable? Do you have dozens of metrics that you are reporting periodically that no one looks at, and when they do look at them, there is room for misinterpretation?

Takeaways:

• Top metrics that are misused or misunderstood in most every organization.
• Metrics that you should you get rid of ASAP!
• Best and Worst metrics – based on opinions of the speakers & audience.
• Metrics that everyone should use – and how they compare to your organization’s metrics.
• Tools and processes that can help your organization better measure your testing.