Given a particular high-level productivity goal, a common desire is to derive specific metrics that track such a goal. Unfortunately, going from goals to metrics is not trivial as metrics are typically proxies for specific aspects of a goal. One technique to bridge this divide is to have an intermediate state under consideration. For example, the goal-question-metric (GQM) approach for understanding and measuring the software process [1, 2] works by first generating “questions” that define goals and then specifying measures that could answer those questions.
