EA872 - Weekly Blog Entry 10

Lesson 9 is all about how your organization's EA framework measures up and common pitfalls that pop up along the way towards EA improvement.  I thought the measurement matrix was an interesting tool for organizing these thoughts in a way that can help explain EA in layman's terms.

The second of this lesson's readings describes the measurement matrix in detail.  The process for development and implementation of an EA measurement program has the following steps (Weiss 2):

1. Planning — mapping metrics to strategies
2. Assessing the organization — comparing capabilities with goals
3. Designing and identifying effective measures
4. Building the measurement process
5. Implementing and measuring
6. Communicating appropriate results to appropriate stakeholders
7. Reviewing, changing and improving performance

Weiss goes on to state, "the metrics used should be statements that link to the assessment area and include some quantitative or qualitative representation of the final measure."  For example, number of products licensed versus established licenses leveraged would help us look at reuse of software and financial efficiency.  (Weiss 4).  Overall, I think organizing data this way makes it much easier to understand where your EA is currently at within the organization.

The main point of this tool, in my opinion, is to help evaluate the results and manage poor performance.  After all, that's how you get true measurement and that's how you embrace continuous improvement within EA.  At the end of the day, as processes are continually changing, your are alwys trying to hit a moving target.