The entire measurement analysis procedure in Infosys depends on the basic data of effort and defects, which is captured in DART and RADAR. Any meaningful conclusions / decisions in a project can be derived based on milestone / metric analysis reports, only if these basic data is accurate. As per the process, DART is supposed to be used "online" and should be submitted weekly. RADAR entries should be made as soon as a review / test is completed, and should be tracked to closure.
Configuration Management
Adherence to the configuration management plan ensures that the team can focus on more productive work. It avoids such confusion and ensures that the Software going to be delivered is conforming to the requirements. It also assures that the code is reviewed, tested and is the correct version consistent with the other deliverables.
COQ
Testing is a very important activity to be done with clear strategy. Effective testing should not be decided by the availability of bandwidth. There should be proper entry and exit criteria defined for testing. Increasing the testing effort arbitrarily does not give any additional benefit and decreasing it arbitrarily is highly risky.
Defect Prevention
Defect prevention is not just about Pareto charts and Fish bone diagrams. The most important thing is to identify, plan and implement the actions needed to eliminate the root causes of the defects. It is also important to verify whether right action is taken and improvement is happening.
Defect Logging
It is not just sufficient to capture the number of defects caught in a review or testing.It is also important to capture the attributes of the defects like severity, type, stage injected, stage detected etc to derive meaningful conclusions. These attributes will also help during defect prevention to understand the root causes of the defects. Refer Defect classification guideline
The Project Plans
Project plan & Configuration Management Plan should be prepared at the early stages of the project reflecting the thought process of project manager on how he is going to execute the project. It creates the roadmap for project execution. Getting it reviewed by peers will help to leverage the experience of others. Project management standard of Infosys Quality system gives the timelines for the project initiation activities. Late preparation only adds to frustration.
Managing Your Risks
Risk management is a process of identifying the risks in a project, prioritizing them and identifying the required mitigation steps. CMMi emphasizes on calculating the cost of the risk and cost of the mitigation steps so that a cost / benefit analysis can be done. This will help to decide on whether to implement the mitigation step or to accept the risk. QSD risk management guidelines should be used to identify the risks and to assign their probability and impact.
Goal Setting
While it is a good practice to revisit the project goals based on the milestone analysis, caution should be exercised while doing that.
It is not required to revisit the project goals after every milestone / metric analysis. A high deviation on a particular milestone does not call for revisiting the goals immediately. A trend needs to be observed and a decision on revisiting the goals should be based on that.