Ron WilsonThere is growing attention these days on Quality Engineering KPI’s. Key performance indicator is defined as “A measure of performance, commonly used to help organization and define success what is typically in terms of making progress towards its long term organizational goals.”
Key performance indicator so companies try positive results towards what an organization views as important. Many people often get confused between what a key performance indicator is versus a business metric. A business metric is defined as a “quantifiable measure businesses use to track, monitor, and assess the success or failure various business processes.” Can key performance indicator’s and business metrics be measured the same? Absolutely. The differences the organization may not identify them as a critical measurement of their long-term goals. It is very important for organizations to have a long term goals because it helps everyone move towards ensuring these goals are met and allows the company to grow and expand. Without goals employees will struggle to understand what is important to the company. Too often companies gather tons of information and metrics but they waste valuable time because they are unable to tie the metric to long term goals. In addition to organizations, departments such as quality engineering need to have KPI’s that are tracked. Some Quality Engineering KPI’s examples include:
- % automated test cases
- Defect leakage %
- No critical or high defects
- 100% requirements coverage
- 100% test case execution
It isn’t for engineering to go both key performance indicator’s and business metrics. This helps managers and testers make better decisions for the organization. Also there is a need to use the key performance indicators and metrics to ensure they are relevant to long-term goals and organizational goals. There is a balance that needs to be closely monitored to ensure too many performance indicators and metrics are not being measured. It will also help the process together these matters can be leveraged using a real-time dashboard. I hope this is helped provide a high-level overview of Quality Engineering KPI’s.
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