TOPIC: Question about quality metrics

Hi,

I am working through chapter 8 (Quality management) and noted that quality metrics are an output of the planning process and an input to both the perform quality assurance and control quality processes.

How can metrics be an output of a planning process? Perhaps I am misunderstanding the meaning of the term quality metrics. When they refer to quality metrics what are they referring to? Are not metrics a list of numbers which should be an output of some other process.

Thanks,
Stephen Simpson

Hi Stephen,

That's a good questions, but it isn't metrics exactly in the way you're thinking of it.

Metrics tell what and how you are going to measure your product’s quality. They give you some objective measures to help you make better judgments about it. This is where you document how you’ll be figuring out the product’s quality. You need to write down the formulas you’ll use, when you will do the measurements, why you are taking them, and how you will interpret them.

Hope that helps.