Defect containment metrics, such as total defect containment effectiveness (TDCE) and phase containment effectiveness (PCE), can be used to give a good indicator of the quality of the process. TDCE captures the defects that are captured at some point between requirements and the release of a product into the field, indicating the overall effectiveness of the entire process to find and remove defects. PCE provides more detail at each phase of the software development life cycle and how the defect detection and removal techniques are working.

Applying these metrics makes sense at a level where you have a well-defined process and methodology for product development, often a project. However, some organizations provide a process framework that is tailored at the project level. This process framework would include the necessary guidance for meeting certifications (ISO9001, CMMI), practices for incorporating known good techniques (agile methods, Lean, Six Sigma), and requirements for legal or regulatory reasons. However, the specific details of how to gather requirements, design the system, produce the software, conduct test, and release are left to the product development teams.

Is there any effective way to apply defect containment metrics at an organizational level when only a process framework exists at the organizational level? If not, what might be some ideas for metrics that can be distilled from each project (each using a tailored process that fits into the organizational process framework) that captures defect containment metrics to discuss the ability of the process to find and remove defects?

The end goal of such a metric would be to consolidate the defect containment practices of a large number of ongoing projects and report to management. The target audience would be people in roles such as the chief software engineer and the chief engineer (of all engineering disciplines) for the organization. Although project specific data would be available, the idea is to produce something that quantifies the general effectiveness of all tailored processes across all ongoing projects. I would suspect that this data would also be presented as part of CMMI, ISO, or similar audits to demonstrate process quality.