What is the best metric for developer productivity? How do you measure your own and your team's productivity. Points, cycle time, churn rate, something else?
If you could see only one data point or take one action each day to improve your own or your team's productivity what would it be? |
The more I manage people (especially developers) the more I'm drawn to the adage of 'a metric that becomes a target ceases to be a useful metric' but at the same time many companies put great stock in trying to develop measurable KPIs - something that I've greatly struggled with through several roles as a development manager.
If I was going to land on anything currently it would probably be something like 'Features released within a iteratively improved estimated timeframe'. In other words a metric that focused on an improvement between now the and last time the measurement was made but not towards a specific target. Also a metric that made people realise that the focus is more around them working as a team and even across multiple teams to achieve a goal.