Evaluation Metric

Project evaluation is crucial for any project to measure project status in terms of meeting budget, schedule, resource performance and a lot more. It helps in identifying issues with software development projects, methodologies followed and a lot more. The main purpose from project evaluation is to help “decision-makers in evaluating funding priorities” (). Project evaluation takes place through project evaluation metrics, which require time and effort, and used to help in as identified by Lever:

To offer sharp and real project status information with regards to schedule and cost.

To detect areas for project process enhancement.

To substantiate the results of process improvement efforts.

“To collect a database of project metrics to analyze trend information or provide historic comparators and perhaps used for parametric estimates” (lever, 2009).

Because evaluation metrics consume lots of time and effort to gather and analyze, its not practical to collect all project metrics for a project, instead project manager should identify relevant metrics to evaluate based on project need and stakeholders requirements. Developing metrics that help in project process improvement and enhancement add more value, as well metrics that offer accurate and real data about project status and budget will provide a better understanding of project specific needs, and provides project manager with signs that help in identifying problems and issues before they occur.

In-house ERP development project matrix attached, details discussed below:

First metric to evaluate will be the cost, most importantly comparison between budget approved at the beginning of the project and the actual project budget, this value will be analyzed to derive areas which consumed more budget and reason for such budget drift.

Second metric to evaluate will be schedule, we will be looking at project plan and evaluating current project progress, this will help in identifying root cause of the delay and find ways to put the project back in track.

Third evaluated metric is scope, number of requested changes, approved changes and impact on project time and budget. Scope is evaluated to insure that project won’t lose its original objective and fall into scope creep.

Quality will be he forth metric to evaluate, by quality we mean following processes, procedure and software development methodologies, insuring project phases; changes and code are properly documented. This will help in tracking project, and aligning project to universal quality standards.

Code complexity and lines of code will be measured to evaluate code quality, and identify other ways code could have been developed with, for example sometimes the way a code is written affect performance and major software functionality. For that software metric is very important to measure in an in-house development project.

The last metric to evaluate is defects, this is important because it will help in evaluating application-integrated functions, application fit to use. Number of defects and bugs and their impact should be evaluated during testing phase.

Project evaluation help in increasing number of successful projects for the IT industry in general and for an organization in specific, such evaluation will add value during a project and as well for future projects.

Reference:

Anonymous, (2006), Project Evaluation Framework, [Online], Available from:

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/water/watersheds/planning/documents/project_evaluation.pdf

(Accessed 21 January 2012)

Lever, R., (2009), ‘Project Evaluation and Selecting Project Metrics’ Project Management Metrics a Tool for Project Process Improvement, [Online], Available form: http://roger-lever.suite101.com/project-evaluation-and-selecting-project-metrics-a92421

(Accessed 21 January 2012)