Instituting a 360 Degree Metrics Program at Cadence

摘要

As the saying goes: if you don't measure it, you can't improve it. The quality improvement initiative at Cadence Design Systems had made some progress on the limited data available about product quality. However, it soon became clear that to achieve the next level of improvement a comprehensive measurement program needed to be established. To get a complete view of both product and process quality, we created a 360 degree metrics view; customers, management, engineers, and the product itself all contribute to our understanding of current quality, needs for improvement, and ensuring positive progress is being made. This paper will describe the process by which metrics were established, measured and reported, how pervasive and continuous review of metrics enabled us to hone in on the most important measures and how those measures are being used to define improvement opportunities and improvement results.