AbstractIn today's highly competitive business environment, with its tight budgets and pressure for continuous improvement and reengineering, qualitative improvements are no longer adequate for an organization to be competitive in the marketplace. Improvements need to be measurable, which requires the availability of quantified baselines and metrics to support the quantification. This paper describes a framework for collection and utilization of metrics within an organization involved in the engineering, development, and deployment of complex systems; the types of metrics that are needed to measure the effectiveness of an organization's processes; and a proposed framework for their utilization at the tactical and strategic levels, including their roles in process improvement and reengineering. This paper also discusses commonly encountered pitfalls and guidelines for implementing a successful metrics program.