Artifact: Project Measurements
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The project measurements artifact is the project's active repository of metrics data. It contains the most current project, resources, process and product measurements at the primitive and derived level. |
| Worker: | Project Manager |
| More Information: | See Guidelines: Metrics |
| Input to Activities: | Output from Activities: |
Purpose 
The Project Measurements artifact provides the storage for the project's metrics data. It is kept current as measurements are made or become available. It also contains the derived metrics that are calculated from the primitive data and should also store information (procedures and algorithms, for example) about how the derived metrics are obtained. Reports on the status of the project, for example, progress towards goals (functionality, quality, and so on), expenditures and other resource consumption, are produced using the project measurements (see Artifact: Status Assessment). More frequent, or even apparently continuous, displays of project status are possible using, for example, the Project Dashboard approach, where automated software data collection agents feed real-time displays of project status.
Brief Outline
The format and contents of the Project Measurements artifact will depend on the metrics selected and the technology used for collection and storage. It is essentially a database of metric-value associations and allied information for their collection and calculation. Its form could be as simple as a set of files manually maintained by the Project Manager, but it is recommended that the collection and storage be automated and, as far as possible, be made non-intrusive.
Timing
The Project Measurements artifact should be set up early in the inception phase, and then kept current, so that reported status does not significantly lag the real status of the project. The actual frequency of update will depend on the particular metric and the technology chosen. For example, effort data is often collected from a timesheet system, which typically will present data on a weekly cycle and also feed a payroll system. It is certainly possible to capture effort data more frequently and divorce its collection from the pay cycle, although this may require additional procedures or systems, which an organization may feel are not justified.
Responsibility
The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that the Project Measurements are properly set-up and then routinely updated. The Project Manager will use the Project Measurements when producing the Artifact: Status Assessment in the Activity: Report Status.
Tailoring
The Project Measurements artifact is a collection point for all the metrics and status information a Project Manager decides are needed to run the project effectively. This may be a distributed artifact, for example, the various metrics selected by the Project Manager may be produced by several different tools, with the collection and reporting task being a manual one. Another example: the project's progress may be reported from a project plan which is routinely updated by the Project Manager from status information supplied by team members in spreadsheets.
Additional Information
