The Fundamentals of Engineering Metrics

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Oct 6, 2022 • 2 min read

When evaluating their team’s health, engineering leaders might look to anecdotal data or rely on instinct. While valuable, these only tell part of the story.

By incorporating metrics into your leadership strategies, you can gain more precise insight into how your teams work. Data provides objective evidence that, if thoughtfully interpreted, can help leaders effectively manage teams to produce better software more efficiently.

Within a business, most departments — including marketing, finance, and HR — use some form of metrics to inform critical decisions. Engineering can also reap the benefits of data: these numbers can provide fact-based support when leaders are looking to create alignment or generate buy-in from key stakeholders. Data also offers engineering leaders a starting point for 1-on-1s, standups, and retros with developers — with metrics, meetings, and coaching conversations remaining objective and rooted in fact.

The idea of tracking and measuring developer productivity can feel like micromanaging, or worse, surveillance, and engineering leaders might be hesitant to introduce metrics to the team. In this ebook, we cover key strategies for introducing metrics in positive ways that avoid blame and promote psychological safety. (Hint: metrics give you insight about the work, not the developers themselves).

You’ll also find:

• How metrics improved delivery for engineering teams and addressed biases for real organizations
• Which metrics to track and how often
• How metrics can both reinforce and challenge your assumptions — and why both are good things

For a deeper dive into the fundamentals of engineering metrics, download our ebook .

Want to learn more about how to best address your team’s challenges? Request a consultation.

Why a Strategy Matters

At the heart of every successful software engineering team is a drive for three things:

1. A culture of continuous improvement
2. The ability to move from idea to impact quickly, frequently, and with confidence
3. A software organization delivering meaningful value

These goals sound simple enough, but in reality, achieving them requires more than just wishing for better performance. It takes data, action, and, most importantly, a cultural shift. And here's the catch: those three things don't come together by accident.

In my experience, whenever a large-scale change fails, there's one common denominator: a lack of a cohesive strategy. Every time I’ve witnessed a failed attempt at implementing new technology or making a big shift, the missing piece was always that strategic foundation. Without a clear, aligned strategy, you're not just wasting resources—you’re creating frustration across the entire organization.

Step 1: Define Your Purpose

The first step in any successful engineering insights strategy is defining why you're doing this in the first place. If you're rolling out developer productivity metrics or an insights platform, you need to make sure there’s alignment on the purpose across the board.

Step 2: Understand Your People

Once the purpose is clear, the next step is to think about who will be involved in this journey. You have to consider the following:

1. Who will be using the developer productivity tool/insights platform?
2. Are these hands-on developers or executives looking for high-level insights?
3. Who else in the organization might need access to the data, like finance or operations teams?

Step 3: Define Your Process

The next key component is process—a step that many organizations overlook. It's easy to say, "We have the data now," but then what happens? What do you expect people to do with the data once it’s available?

Step 4: Program and Rollout Strategy

The next piece of the puzzle is your program and rollout strategy. It’s easy to roll out an engineering insights platform and expect people to just log in and start using it, but that’s not enough.

Step 5: Choose Your Platform Wisely

And finally, we come to the platform itself. It’s the shiny object that many organizations focus on first, but as I’ve said before, it’s the last piece of the puzzle, not the first.

Looking Ahead

To build a successful engineering insights strategy, you need to go beyond just installing a tool. An insights platform can only work if it’s supported by a clear purpose, the right people, a well-defined process, and a program that rolls it out effectively. The combination of these elements will ensure that your insights platform isn’t just a dashboard—it becomes a powerful driver of change and improvement in your organization.

Understand the Broader Business Strategy

Understanding the broader business strategy isn’t optional for high-performing engineering organizations—it’s a fundamental requirement. Through our developer experience surveys, we’ve observed a significant difference between the highest-performing organizations and the rest as it relates to how well developers understand the business impact they are responsible for delivering.