Codermetrics

Name

Tackles

Synopsis

Purpose

Measure how many potential issues or opportunities a coder handles proactively.

Formula

Tackles = Number of Pluses where coder demonstrates initiative or innovation

Example

Coder A is noted as having contributed the following “pluses,” demonstrating significant initiative or innovation, over the course of four development iterations:

Iteration 1: 1 Plus (developed a reusable migration script when solving a specific customer production issue)

Iteration 2: No Pluses

Iteration 3: No Pluses

Iteration 4: 1 Plus (came up with a new stored procedure that improved performance on a key transaction by 100%)

You can then calculate Tackles per iteration as follows:

Tackles Iteration 1 = 1

Tackles Iteration 2 = 0

Tackles Iteration 3 = 0

Tackles Iteration 4 = 1

Finally you can calculate the Total and the Average across iterations:

Total Tackles = (1 + 0 + 0 + 1) = 2

Average Tackles = (1 + 0 + 0 + 1) / 4 = .5

Notes

In a well-functioning software development team, especially on a mature software project, Tackles may not occur at an extremely high frequency, but they will probably occur at a frequency greater than Saves. Also, unlike the work on Product Issues, the work that results in Tackles is often related directly to new development efforts in ongoing projects. For this reason, it is useful to track Tackles within each development iteration, as shown in Table 4-11. Reporting at this granularity also helps highlight for everyone the value of initiative and innovation and encourages ...