Herb Krasner, University of Texas at Austin (ret.), CISQ Advisory Board member
A new law in Texas necessitates the enhanced monitoring of all large IT projects in state agencies. It requires regular measurement and reporting of project performance indicators: schedule, cost, scope, and quality. Quality is believed to be the most challenging of the performance indicators, yet it has the largest potential for driving significant improvement.
To address this, I’ve published a new position paper on IT quality measurement, which outlines the strategic and tactical reasons for doing so, and lays out a definitional framework for implementation of the new law.
Download it here: IT Quality: Measurement Implications for Large IT Projects in Texas
IT quality metrics for the following work products are defined and explained in the report: plan quality, requirements quality, architecture/design quality, software code quality, data quality, test quality, and operational system quality. The larger implications for process maturity, lean and agile development, effective use of industry standards, and cybersecurity measurement are also outlined. The guidelines in this paper are intended to help the state implement this new law, and may be useful to other states traversing the same path to more successful IT projects. The new law goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2018, and the implementation mechanisms are currently under development.
Standards developed by CISQ are included under software code quality and operational system quality.
For more information, read these related blog entries: