Codermetrics

Value Metric Scorecards

As with Skill Metrics and Response Metrics, a simple way to calculate and track Value Metrics is with a spreadsheet. A single master spreadsheet for each project could be used to track and calculate all your metrics, with the types of metrics on separate worksheets. As new data comes in, you enter it and the metrics are automatically updated. More elaborate systems, of course, could also be developed. You could design spreadsheets to pull data from files or a database, for example, or you could develop simple web applications to enter and calculate metrics using an integrated development system such as Ruby on Rails.

As mentioned before, I like to use the spreadsheet documents within Google Docs. I find that it excels in ease of use, has good charting, offers reliable storage and availability, and makes it easy to share with coders in multiple locations. Certainly other good hosted or local spreadsheet options are available. I call these metric spreadsheets “scorecards.”

Figure 6-3 shows an example of a project scorecard that includes calculations for the Value Metrics. There is a worksheet for every coder, with their individual data and their Skill Metrics. Then there is a worksheet for the project with the data and the calculations for the Response Metrics. The Value Metrics worksheet shown in Figure 6-3 uses the values from the other worksheets, and then it also provides a set of charts that produce a type of “dashboard” for the key value provided by each ...