A study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes, “stepping on a scale every day, and adjusting eating and exercise habits accordingly, can go a long way in helping dieters maintain a weight loss.”

This reminds me of my favorite theme in accelerating the delivery of software: measure, manage and execute.

The same human nature that causes us to regain lost weight will cause our software projects to spin out of control if we do not regularly assess our progress and, importantly, adjust our actions to achieve our desired outcomes.

There is no simple scale to “step on” in the software development domain. But Stelligent has created the Accelerated Delivery Index™ to help your company quantify development.

Whether you use this index or develop an aggregated system of code, coverage and use metrics yourself, a daily reading of your status and adjusting coding and testing habits accordingly, can go a long way in improving your ability to quickly deliver reliable software solutions.

Are you stepping on the scale every day?