The Pre-History of Metrics

by Carl Pritchard

The term "metric" is taken from the Sanskrit word for "measure," as the purpose of any good metric is to generate meaningful measurements for the sake of improvement and understanding. In the June and November issues of the Cutter IT Journal (CITJ), researcher upon researcher provided data and insight on benchmarking practices and protocols as well as the vital nature of such efforts in the mature project management environment. Many project organizations, however, are not mature. They are not anywhere close. They are at Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Level 1 at best, and don't have the infrastructure, the capability, or the resources to track metrics effectively.