How to be SMART

The Problem

  • Doing:
    • Making the user interface less confusing
    • Speeding up the app
    • Cleaning up the CSS
  • Obstacles:
    • Need a better way to manage the backlog
    • Having trouble scheduling meetings
    • Code getting too disorganized
  • Beyond not being user stories, these are useless
    • You can't tell when you're done
    • You can't even tell if you made things better

How to be SMART

How to be SMART

  • For every goal
    • Define one or relevant metrics
      • things you can measure
    • Set a realistic target
      • something other than perfect
    • Set a time to achieve the target or try something else
    • Start measuring
      • instrument the code or process as needed
    • While there's a problem
      • DTSTTCPW
      • measure again
    • Stop
  • You can't control what you can't measure -- Tom DeMarco

Practice

  • Make user interface less confusing
    • Metrics:
      • ...
    • Instrumentation:
      • ...
    • Realistic target:
      • ...
    • Simple change:
      • ...

Practice

  • Trouble scheduling meetings
    • Metrics: ...
      • ...
    • Instrumentation:
      • ...
    • Realistic target:
      • ...
    • Simple change:
      • ...