Capers Jones Conversation

I just got off the phone with Capers Jones, founder of SPR. We had a great conversation on software metrics, and he definitely gave me some interesting bits to chew on. One aspect of metrics that I’ve been particularly interested in is how IT can use metrics to show their value to the business. He was pretty crisp in his response when he stated that it isn’t IT’s job to measure their value to the business.

This sent me swirling for a moment, and I’m sure the depth of the conversation that followed shortly thereafter was lost on me. His point was that IT doesn’t really know how to measure their value. Instead, it’s the business people who understand what value they hope to get from the software, so it must be the business people that measure that value. I think Caper’s point is this. If I spend $100 on a product, it’s my responsibility to ensure I’ve gotten $100 worth of value out of that product. The company I purchased the product from has no way of measuring the value I received from the product.

But I’ll take that one step further. The company does have the ability to measure the perceived value, and there are a lot of ways to do that. They can follow-up with me directly to obtain qualitative measurements on my satisfaction with the product. They can also monitor various sales channels to obtain quantitative measurements. They can combine this qualitative and quantitative data to create meaningful measurements that allows them to gauge the value of their product to the consumer. And really, as value goes up, so to do sales.

This translates to IT. IT does have the ability to gather qualitative data from their customers. They also have the ability to obtain loads of quantitative information. The key is that IT cannot measure their value to the business without working closely with their business partners who will provide them with the information they need to make those measurements.

Capers went on to say that IT must be able to demonstrate competency in the products and services they deliver, and that there is business value in that. Examples included showing that my productivity rates exceed those of my outsourcing counterparts, that I’m able to build software with fewer defects, or that I can deliver software that isn’t vulnerable to security breach.

I sum it up like this. If I’m able to increase my internal efficiencies and also able to measure and improve my  effectiveness, that translates into my advantage because I’m able to deliver higher quality products and services more quickly than my competitors. And that’s an advantage to my customers, which keeps them coming back to me. The key is that I must be able to measure it.

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