Codermetrics

Name

Fielding

Synopsis

Purpose

Establish a relative rating for the range and breadth of work successfully handled.

Formula

Fielding = (Utility + Range) - (Turnovers + Errors)

Example

The individual coders on a software team are measured to have the following Skill Metric values for a software release, calculated through four months following the release:

Coder A: Utility 114, Range 2, Turnovers 22, Errors 71

Coder B: Utility 98, Range 6, Turnovers 11, Errors 29

Coder C: Utility 132, Range 4, Turnovers 7, Errors 70

Coder D: Utility 106, Range 3, Turnovers 0, Errors 49

The Fielding metric for each coder can then be calculated as follows:

Fielding Coder A = (114 + 2) - (22 + 71) = 23

Fielding Coder B = (98 + 6) - (11+ 29) = 64

Fielding Coder C = (132 + 4) - (7 + 70) = 59

Fielding Coder D = (106 + 3) - (0 + 49) = 60

Notes

The Fielding metric is so named for the idea of “fielding” from baseball, which refers to players on the field catching the ball. Conceptually this metric represents how much activity a “player” is involved in, and how proficient she is in handling the activity. In this case, the Utility and Range Skill Metrics are the indicators of how much “stuff” each coder handled, and that is offset by the number of Turnovers and Errors, which are the counter-indicative magnitude of mistakes made.

A coder with a high Fielding rating is someone who successfully handles a number of items while keeping the number of mistakes relatively low. As with other Rating Metrics, you need to be careful about ...