SKEDSOFT

Cause and Effect Matrices:

Example (Software Feature Decision-Making) a Midwest software company is trying to prioritize possible design changes, which are inputs for their software product design problem. They are able to develop consensus ratings from two customers and two product engineers.Construct a C&E matrix to help them prioritize with regard to nine possible features.

Answer: In discussions with software users, seven issues were identified (qc = 7). Consensus ratings for the importance of each were developed. Through discussions with software engineers, the guesses were made about the correlations (were guessed) between the customer issues and the m = 9 inputs. No outputs were considered (q = 0). Table 5.1 shows the results, including the factor ratings (F′) in the bottom column.

The results suggest that regression formula outputs and a wizard for first-timers should receive top priority if the desires of customers are to be respected.