The Software Development Metrics Fivetran Engineers Use to Boost Productivity

How metrics help the team stay agile, keep costs low and commit to what is doable.
Written by Olivia McClure
April 22, 2021Updated: April 27, 2021

For engineering teams, measuring productivity and tracking inefficiencies is just as important as perfecting a new product or feature. 

Hence, the need for software development metrics. Once engineering teams have access to crucial data derived from these metrics, they can then extract actionable insights that can drive innovation — and efficiency — in the future. 

As an engineering manager at data platform provider Fivetran, Teena Mathew understands the importance of software development metrics. Using these measures helps her team understand the complexity of a task while improving how quickly they’re able to get it done, she said. 

Built In San Francisco checked in with Mathew to get an inside look at the metrics her team uses — and how they impact productivity.  

 

Teena Mathew
Engineering Manager • Fivetran

What metrics do you use to measure the productivity of your engineering team, and why?

The teams I work with track sprint velocity, incident incoming rate and code debt. Sprint velocity tracking enables teams, specifically engineering, product and leads, to look at data from previous iterations and commit to what is doable.

Regarding incident incoming rate, my teams prioritize customer issues based on a prioritization matrix. Keeping track of the number of incoming issues logged by customer support, sales and internal teams helps us stay agile and re-prioritize when necessary.

We track code debt to ensure code stays maintainable. It also helps in keeping correction costs at a minimum. 
 

By refining and standardizing story pointing, the team understands and discusses the complexity of a task without basing it on an individual’s knowledge.”


What are some examples of insights you’ve derived from these metrics, and what actions came out of them?

Initially, I noticed many variations in sprint velocity. For instance, on a team of five, there were sprints with 100 story points and some with 45 story points. This variation compelled us to take action in a couple of ways. 

First, we realized the identified story pointing was not consistent, so we ran through training for story pointing with our teams using examples from our future tasks.

We also needed to normalize sprint velocity to load balance. We realized the difference in the number of story points completed needed to be plus or minus five points to get to a comfortable commitment rate for our teams.

 

MORE ON FIVETRAN'S ENGINEERING TEAMWhy Non-Functional Requirements Are Non-Negotiable

 

What impact has tracking these metrics (and acting upon the data) had on your team’s productivity? 

By refining and standardizing story pointing, the team understands and discusses the complexity of a task without basing it on an individual's knowledge. This has helped improve the velocity of the team since we now lean on each other for task completion.

Keeping track of incoming incident rates helps us improve and feature velocity. We plan future quarters based on the type of incoming incidents and engineering priorities that include feature proposals based on the incident types. This has increased our feature delivery velocity over time while reducing the incoming incident rate.

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