How to measure engineering productivity effectively

Most teams measure engineering in sprints, tickets, uptime. Useful, sure, but when you’re running at real enterprise scale… Those metrics stop telling the full story. I love the shift Steve Jang talks about here: cost per customer interaction. Suddenly, engineering performance isn’t just about system health; it’s about business value. It connects what your teams build to how the business grows. For me, that’s where clarity comes from. Complexity is unavoidable when you’re processing billions of signals and interactions. The trick is finding the one metric that cuts through the noise and makes sense to everyone, from engineers to the board. That way, decisions stop being “how fast can we ship?” and start being “is this the best use of our resources to serve the customer?” If you had to pick one metric that ties engineering directly to business value in your world, what would it be?

Your engineering team is deploying multiple times per day, and you've got feature flags everywhere. You think you're practicing Progressive Delivery, but you're only solving one-third of the puzzle. The real challenge isn't getting code to production—it's getting users to actually adopt what you've built. Most organizations have mastered deployment while completely ignoring the human side of software delivery. The difference between shipping features and delivering value comes down to understanding that deployment, release, and adoption are three entirely different challenges. Read more at the link in comments 🔽 CC James Governor, Kimberly Harrison, Heidi Waterhouse, and Adam Zimman

I often hear 'we can't have both speed and quality.' I disagree. As engineers, our true challenge isn't choosing between them, but architecting systems and processes that enable both. How do you, in your team, move beyond the perceived trade-off to deliberately build for sustained speed and uncompromised quality? I'll share my top three strategies that redefine this balance. 1. Strategic Architectural Investments: Proactively design for change. This means investing in modular architectures, clear interfaces, and well-defined boundaries that allow teams to iterate quickly without fear of breaking unrelated components. Good architecture isn't a luxury; it's a velocity enabler and a quality guardrail. 2. Automate for Resilience and Speed: Manual processes are bottlenecks and sources of error. Embrace comprehensive CI/CD pipelines, robust automated testing, and Infrastructure as Code. These investments drastically reduce lead times, catch issues early, and free up engineers to focus on innovation, not repetitive tasks. This isn't about doing things faster, but enabling speed through built-in reliability. 3. Foster a Culture of Continuous Improvement & Learning: High-performing teams continuously refine their craft. Implement blameless post-mortems and regular retrospectives to identify systemic issues, not just symptoms. Empower teams to experiment, learn from failures, and adapt their processes and tooling. This iterative approach builds quality directly into the development lifecycle, preventing regressions and fostering sustainable speed. By deliberately engineering our systems and processes, we transform the 'speed vs. quality' paradox into a powerful synergy, reducing long-term costs and boosting team morale. What deliberate engineering strategies have you successfully implemented to achieve both speed and quality in your projects? Share your insights below! #TechLeadership #SoftwareEngineering #EngineeringExcellence #DevOps #QualityEngineering #ContinuousImprovement #TechLeadership #SoftwareEngineering 💡 Inspired by: Balancing Speed vs. Quality in Software Delivery

“Developer productivity might be the worst possible name for one of the most important challenges facing engineering organizations today.” In this article, Swarmia Field CTO Rebecca Murphey explains why many developer productivity initiatives miss the mark and how companies can focus more of their productivity efforts on building engineering systems that let talented people do their best work.

📊 Engineering Teams Missing 65% of Q3 Commitments - Here's the $2.4M Hidden Cost Remember your Q3 roadmap from June? How many features actually shipped on time? If you're like most teams at 35-50% predictability, the answer hurts.   𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 July 1st: "We'll deliver 12 features this quarter!" September 2nd: 4 shipped, 3 delayed, 5 haven't started. Your board meeting is in 3 weeks. The story writes itself:   • "Unexpected technical challenges"   • "Resource constraints"   • "Scope creep from customer requests" 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: We have no idea why we can't deliver predictably. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗣𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 A client CEO told me: "I'm tired of apologizing for my engineering team. They're brilliant. Something else is broken." He was right. The people weren't the problem. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗮𝘀.   𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 ✅ The Predictability Health Audit™ uncovered the truth in 2 weeks: ✅ Requirements changed 𝟰.𝟯 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 per feature ✅ Testing bottleneck added 𝟴 𝗱𝗮𝘆𝘀 to every release ✅ "Priority" meant nothing - everything was P1 We built their "Path to 80%" roadmap based on data, not opinions.   𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 Next quarter (with the same team): • 𝟭𝟭 𝗼𝗳 𝟭𝟮 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 shipped on time • Sprint velocity became predictable within 𝟭𝟬 - 𝟮𝟬% • Customer complaints dropped 𝟲𝟳%   The kicker? We spent $𝟬 𝗼𝗻 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀.   📍 Be honest: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗤𝟯 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗯𝘆 𝗦𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟯𝟬𝘁𝗵? Stop guessing. Start measuring: 📅 Schedule your free 30-minute assessment consultation now! https://lnkd.in/gtMFqADh 🔔 Ring the bell if you like it. ♻️ Repost to assist others turn Q3 goals into reality! 🎯Follow The Process Mechanic™ for more like this. #PredictabilityHealthAudit™ #EngineeringLeadership #ProcessOptimization #TechDebt #DeliveryExcellence #TheProcessMechanic #SoftwareDevelopment #CTOInsights #ScalingTech #OperationalExcellence

When applying domain-driven platform engineering (DDPE) to Team Topologies' four fundamental team types, each role transforms significantly. Stream-aligned teams now map to business subdomains and interact with platforms through domain-specific capabilities rather than generic tools. Platform teams must segment their services by domain context instead of offering monolithic solutions—requiring new team constructs with specialized domain expertise. Enabling teams expand beyond bridging generic platform tools to addressing domain-specific adoption challenges. Meanwhile, complicated subsystem teams build specialized capabilities that span multiple domains and platforms. This evolution recognizes that effective platform engineering requires domain expertise that doesn't naturally fit within traditional team structures. 🚀 Discover how combining Team Topologies with domain-driven thinking creates more scalable, adaptive platforms that actually accelerate developer productivity. This comprehensive guide authored by Team Topologies Advocate Ajay Chankramath reveals the layered service taxonomy, cognitive load principles, and team patterns that leading organizations use to escape the "platform engineering is just a fad" trap. Don't let your platform initiative become another statistic—read the full article and transform your approach: https://lnkd.in/dqK-8jyN

One of the missing links in delivering outcomes is how you structure your teams. Not every team should be a dedicated product team with a product manager, some teams are platform teams, some are enabling teams, some are complicated sub-system and some are stream aligned teams with measurable impact on business outcome. if you treat every team in your company as a stream aligned team then some teams will be piggy backing on metrics and sucess of other teams, they can't deliver outcomes or move the needle on thier own. Highly recommend reading: - Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow https://lnkd.in/dcuTrXhU - Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation https://lnkd.in/dpNF4Jtq

It still shocks me how many senior people in software confuse extreme engineering with extreme over-engineering culture. Extreme engineering means pursuing ambitious, sometimes unimaginable goals with maximum efficiency (and minimal resources). Anything redundant needs to go. Best part is no part. Extreme engineering requires curiosity, creativity and courage more than just craft.

Most engineering teams are measuring the wrong things for their company's stage. Companies at different growth stages have fundamentally different priorities, which in turn dictate how to measure engineering’s effectiveness. If you’re getting started with software engineering metrics (or even revamping your current program): 1️⃣ Identify your company’s stage of growth (the metrics that drive success for a Series A startup will differ dramatically from those needed by a Fortune 500 enterprise). 2️⃣ Select 3–5 essential metrics for that stage. 3️⃣ Establish baselines—know where you are today. 4️⃣ Set up regular reviews (monthly is a good rhythm). 5️⃣ Plan ahead for the next stage so your metrics scale with your team. Want to know which metrics actually matter for your company's stage? We mapped them out: https://lnkd.in/gPTTnPQ4

We’re proud to introduce the Peak Engineering Culture Model. A proven approach to transforming engineering culture into measurable business value. After years of working with engineering teams in large, often traditional enterprises, we’ve distilled what truly works in practice into a clear and actionable framework. At a time when AI is reshaping how software is built, delivered, and collaborated on, this model is more relevant than ever. It’s built on four core principles: - Craftsmanship: Pride in creating quality software - Delivery: Consistent, predictable value delivery - Collaboration: Inclusive, high-performing team dynamics - Innovation: Continuous exploration and idea implementation With these pillars, we assess how teams work, identify growth opportunities, and tie everything back to your business value drivers. By embedding our domain specialists within your teams, we create lasting change from the inside out. Curious where your organization stands? Take our Engineering Culture Assessment and discover how the Peak Engineering Culture Model can accelerate your transformation:
https://lnkd.in/eZicQQVy