Software Engineering Metrics & KPIs: Your Starter Guide

The business pressures of today’s software-driven world require engineering teams to operate at peak performance. But how can you measure performance? Is it the number of weeks in a sprint? Is it time to resolve the issue? Or is it something more qualitative such as collaboration?

There are so many possible ways to measure the performance of your engineering teams it can be difficult to settle on the right metrics. Fortunately, there's a handul of tools out there to help with this.

Why Engineering Teams Need Metrics & Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

An engineering KPI or metric is a clearly defined quantifiable measure a business can use to gauge the success of software engineering teams over time. With engineering being a very broad field, KPIs are employed in a variety of ways, ranging from company-wide analysis to project-specific performance metrics. Company-wide KPIs can be used to compare against industry benchmarks, while project-specific KPIs can be used internally to evaluate project performance.

Regardless of what you measure, measuring the performance of software engineering teams can have a lot of benefits to the business. It can not only make goals and objectives clearer for individual employees, but metrics and KPIs across teams can help align everyone to common goals as well as provide more focus to your teams and avoid wasteful or duplicative work.