practice-guides

Setting Goals for Your Project

Go Back to Step 1

You may have noticed that the process of describing current practices has several benefits. For some, the exercise leads to the first concrete description of these practices. A document developed with others usually leads to discussions among team members, improving understanding and creating insights about which practices can be improved and how.

Now that you have these descriptions in hand, you are ready to start Step 2.

Step 2: Set Goals

When setting productivity and sustainability improvement goals, look for improvements that can be realized in a few weeks or months, at least in early PSIP iterations. Larger goals are fine, if they can factored into smaller increments with delivered value.

For example, if your team wants to have a goal of comprehensive testing, you will want to specify incremental goals in Step 5 toward the comprehensive goal.

As you set your goals, consider these questions, engaging external expertise as needed:

• What consumes most of our time? Where are we inefficient? Are there new ways to improve our efficiency?
• Where do we have quality problems? What are the sources of poor quality? How can we improve quality?
• Is our software product sustainable for its expected lifespan? What is limiting sustainability? How can we improve sustainability?
• Can I construct a goal with deliverable value in manageable increments?
• Can I complete the goal (or a subgoal) in one normal development iteration (a few weeks or months)?
• Will accomplishing the goal provide tangible payoff within a few months after completion?

After asking these and similar questions, you will have a list of ideas for which practices you wish to improve.

Next, you will create a Progress Tracking Card (PTC) that will help you establish baseline values and tangibly track progress as your practices improve.

Ready to move to the next step?

Steps 3 & 4: Construct and Record PTC