Codermetrics

Name

Penalties

Synopsis

Purpose

Measure the overall urgency of customer support issues.

Formula

Penalties = Sum (Urgency for each User Issue)

Example

During a two-week timeframe for one software release, the following user issues are reported to the customer support team either over the phone or through email, and are rated on a scale for urgency from 1 (least urgent) to 4 (most urgent):

Week 1: Issue 1 with Urgency 2

Week 1: Issue 2 with Urgency 3

Week 1: Issue 3 with Urgency 1

Week 1: Issue 4 with Urgency 1

Week 2: Issue 5 with Urgency 4

Week 2: Issue 6 with Urgency 2

Week 2: Issue 7 with Urgency 2

Week 2: Issue 8 with Urgency 3

To calculate Penalties, add the urgency for all reported user issues as follows:

Penalties during Week 1 = (2 + 3 + 1 + 1) = 7

Penalties during Week 2 = (4 + 2 + 2 + 3) = 11

The Total and Average Penalties can then be calculated simply:

Total Penalties for 2-week period = (7 + 11) = 18

Average Penalties per week = (7 + 11) / 2 = 9

Notes

When customers contact your support team with problems, it’s a sign of some level of trouble that might result in negative user response. Among the Loss Metrics, therefore, I include the Penalties metric that measures these reported problems. This is similar to Penalties incurred by players in some sports such as football and soccer. Penalties don’t necessarily result in losses—but accumulating many penalties could result in losses, and they may be an indicator of player mistakes that require more attention or a plan to improve.

Urgency is rated ...