The 6 Characteristics of Effective Metrics
I had the pleasure of meeting and working with Bob Lewis of Infoworld and CIO magazines recently. In looking through his many excellent blogs I noticed this one today. It sumarizes a viable metrics program very well and is compatible with the goal, question, metric approach. He calls it the 6 C's of effective metrics:
- "Connected to Organizational Goals: Good metrics are connected to important goals. In fact, they begin as important goals, stated in English.
- Consistent: Consistent metrics always go in one direction when the situation improves and the other direction when it deteriorates. If good doesn't always point in one direction and bad in the other, your metric will drive organizational dysfunction.
- Calibrated: Calibration means you get the same value in the same situation no matter who records it. It also means the data are free from sample bias and other quality problems.
- Complete: Anything you don't measure you don't get, so any useful system of measures must include all factors that are important to achieving the goal.
- Communicated: The purpose of metrics is to drive behavior. If you don't communicate their purpose, they won't drive behavior.
- Current: Goals change. Keep the old measures and you'll achieve your old goals, not your new ones."
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FPGA Sticker Shock
Galorath’s Sam Sanchez works extensively with IC’s and with understanding the cost if IC’s. He provided the following:
Over the past year or so, we have been doing FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) material cost research updates in support of our next SEER-IC release and I can’t help being shocked at the recurring costs of some of the higher end FPGAs in the market. Once you pass the simple lower performance items, you start to see a large escalation in the per piece cost.
I remember years ago being surprised to see chips priced at $200 to $800. Now, I regularly see midsized state of the practice chips that go for $10K a piece (and I am not even talking about the leading edge 28nm stuff). At times, I come across several orders of magnitude above this. I guess it’s the sign of the times.
These devices can do more but they do not come cheap. Focusing only on performance, we might say who cares. However, as cost is becoming increasingly more critical, these new technology costs have to be examined closely. If for instance, you are targeting a portable device with a specific recurring cost bogey, you need to carefully consider what these new chip technologies mean not just in development costs but also in recurring costs. Depending on the size and amount of these FPGAs, their costs that dwarf all other BOM costs.
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
2012 Defense Strategic Guidance Summary
The following is a summary by Galorath’s Chris Hutchings of the briefing on January 6, 2012 by Mr. Frank Kendall (Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics) regarding the Strategic Guidance given by the President, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen. Dempsey) and the Defense Secretary (Mr. Panetta).
- While the specifics on how the defense strategic guidance will affect the Pentagon’s budget are not yet known, it is intended that there will be a reduction in the region of $487 billion over the next ten years
- The US will continue to meet its global responsibilities, albeit in manner more aligned to the current and emergent requirements and constrained budgets. Specifically, non-priority capabilities including ‘protracted, large scale operations’ will be reduced while investments will be made in technologies that provide ‘an agile and decisive edge against all threats,’ including Cyber Warfare and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
- Technology supremacy is seen as an integral part of a progressive strategy and, as such, those within the industrial base that develop and support such technology are central to the success of the strategy
- A significant emphasis was placed on a requirement for continued operational readiness of a smaller, leaner force that is easily regenerated and mobilized to meet the following primary aims –
- Strategic deterrence
- Defeat threats from terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda. He highlighted the use of Special Forces in this area.
- To react and defeat an immediate aggressor, while being able to ‘effectively inhibit the activities’ of a second aggressor
- In line with the ‘better buying’ initiatives of Deputy Secretary of Defense (Carter), the strategy will include mechanisms to incentivize industry to become more efficient
- Attention was drawn to two areas of specific risk to the success of the strategy, namely –
- Industry must be, and act as, a part of the solution to the challenges that the Pentagon faces
- Sequestration, a real threat to the aims of the strategy
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Cost Readiness Level (CRL) Establishing Cost Risk Based On Engineering Decisions
I am working on a paper for NASA’s project manager conference. In the course of this work I again reviewed the interesting work performed by Dr. Joe Hamaker while he was head of cost for NASA in establishing cost uncertainty before parametric models like SEER were used, and again after the system had been more finely modeled.
Like TRLs, CRLs are designed to communicate the quality of the product—its fitness for use. CRLs have been constructed to run the same 1 to 9 ordinal scale as TRLs, except we pay little attention to cost estimates at CRL 1-3. In the case of CRLs, it is the quality of the cost product itself—the estimate’s fitness for use –that we are measuring
Joe equated cost readiness levels to technology readiness levels (TRL) to cost readiness levels and came up with the following: Read more
Thank you for reading “Dan on Estimating”, if you would like more information about Galorath’s estimation models, please visit our contact page or call us at +1 310 414-3222.
Project Prediction Infographic
