Building a Robust Engineering Metrics Program

Why an Engineering Metrics Program?

Software engineering teams face constant pressure to deliver quickly, maintain high quality, and align closely with business objectives. However, measuring software engineering excellence often presents significant challenges. As Peter Drucker famously said, "You can't improve what you can't measure." Implementing an effective Engineering Metrics Program addresses this exact challenge, transforming raw data into actionable objectives and key results (OKRs & KPIs).

Engineering excellence is about continuously optimizing three key areas:

People:

• Ensuring you have skilled team members in the right roles.
• Maintaining the right team size for efficient collaboration.

Processes:

• Minimizing repetitive, low-value tasks.
• Reducing cognitive load to boost creative, high-impact work.

Tools:

• Providing the right tools to support efficiency and scalability.

Core Components of an Effective Program

To achieve true engineering excellence, your metrics must focus on two key areas:

Engineering Excellence Metrics:

• Focused on team productivity, efficiency, and technical execution.

Business Alignment Metrics:

• Focused on how engineering outputs drive tangible business outcomes.

Leveraging the DORA Framework

The DevOps Research & Assessment (DORA) metrics are recognized as the gold standard for measuring software engineering health. They include:

• Lead Time for Changes
  • Time from code committed to production deployment.‍
• Deployment Frequency
  • Frequency of successful deployments.‍
• Mean Time to Restore (MTTR)
  • Time to recover from production incidents.‍
• Change Failure Rate
  • Percentage of deployments causing issues in production.

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While DORA metrics provide excellent insights into performance, deeper analysis is essential to reveal underlying bottlenecks. This comprehensive visibility is where Harness Software Engineering Insights (SEI) shines.

Real-World Impact with Harness Software Engineering Insights

The Harness Engineering Metrics Program, created by Adeeb Valiulla, Director, Engineering Excellence at Harness, integrates seamlessly with Harness Software Engineering Insights. Harness SEI pulls data from multiple sources such as Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, and Harness CD, intelligently correlating it to give teams clear, actionable insights. This allows teams to visualize key engineering health metrics, such as:

• Efficiency: Lead Time, Deployment Frequency, Change Failure Rate, Commit To Done Ratio, Scope Creep.
• Productivity: PR Cycle Time, Coding Days, Unapproved PRs, Time to PR approvals.
• Alignment: KTLO vs Build New Stuff vs Improving Existing Stuff.

Implementing an Effective Engineering Metrics Program

The Harness Engineering Metrics Program is a proven four-step approach that provides a structured path to enhance developer productivity and business alignment:

Step 1: Get Visibility

Correlate and analyze data across tools, revealing critical insights into team performance and identifying process bottlenecks.

Step 2: Set Benchmarks

Establish clear benchmarks aligned with your team’s context, informed by industry standards but tailored to your specific goals and structure.

Step 3: Set the Next Target Condition

Identify patterns by correlating metrics, prioritizing actionable improvements, and tracking historical trends to pinpoint what needs immediate attention.

Step 4: Iterate Towards the Target Condition

Implement an improvement plan that provides end-to-end coverage, granularity for in-depth insights, and clarity for effective tracking and accountability. Regularly refine your plan to ensure continuous improvement.

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Actionable Insights and Practical Roadmap

To illustrate, if your data reveals that PR approval times are slowing your lead time, introduce automated review processes or better tooling. Regularly reviewing your progress via clear dashboards ensures alignment and helps your team understand exactly what actions drive improvements.

• If Deployment Frequency is low,
  • consider automating more stages of your CI/CD pipeline to streamline deployments.
• If Change Failure Rate is high,
  • prioritize improving test coverage and implementing automated testing to catch issues earlier.
• If Mean Time To Restore (MTTR) is too long,
  • enhance monitoring and alerting systems to quickly identify and resolve production incidents.
• If Commit-To-Done rates are low,
  • investigate stages of development causing delays and introduce targeted training or better workload distribution.
• If Scope Creep is evident,
  • establish stricter change control processes and improve requirement clarity through closer collaboration with stakeholders.
• Balance KTLO (Keep The Lights On) tasks
  • versus building new features by clearly categorizing work items and regularly reviewing resource allocation.
• Track and improve Coding Days
  • by minimizing interruptions, optimizing meeting schedules, and ensuring sufficient focused development time.
• If high numbers of Unapproved PRs exist,
  • establish clearer PR guidelines, automate PR reminders, and conduct periodic review sprints.

Building Your Roadmap

Developing a clear roadmap focused on specific objectives, such as reducing lead times or improving deployment frequency, helps your team stay aligned. Each roadmap should include specific targets, timelines, and responsible owners to track and drive accountability effectively.

Conclusion

A structured Engineering Metrics Program transforms how you approach engineering efficiency, productivity, and alignment. Harness Software Engineering Insights, combined with the Harness Engineering Metrics Program structured approach, equips your team to identify, prioritize, and act on areas that truly matter.

Ready to elevate your engineering team's efficiency and business alignment? Discover how the Harness Engineering Metrics Program and Harness Software Engineering Insights can make a measurable impact on your organization today.

Request to see a demo today!