Measuring Process Innovations and Improvements

A major challenge in process improvement is to understand process innovation and improvement efficiency and use. How do we know that process innovations and improvements give organizational benefits? We need a mechanism for measuring. In this paper, we report from a longitudinal action research study at the telecom company Ericsson where a measurement mechanism was designed and successfully used in practice to understand, learn, and measure process efficiency. In the concrete, the measurement mechanism was built through empirical testing combined with using a goal–question–metrics (GQM) approach. The resulting measurement mechanism consists of four correlated metrics that indicate process use, process commitment, process learning, and process improvement. The same measurement mechanism can also be used to obtain feedback and evaluation, thereby allowing the organi198 Part 3: Software Process Improvement zation to determine process efficiency and use, and to determine the success of the process improvements.