Velocity tells you how quickly your team can deliver value. Use these metrics to track and improve your team’s delivery speed.
Metrics to Monitor
PR Cycle Time and Coding Time (PR Cycle Time Metrics)
- Why it matters: Measures how quickly work moves through the development pipeline.
- How to use: Use this metric to understand the total time it takes for a pull request to move from creation to deployment. Analyze the breakdown of stages, such as coding, review, and deployment, to identify where delays occur. For example:Long Coding Times could indicate overly complex tasks or unclear requirements. To streamline the process, break down large PRs into smaller, more manageable pieces.Lengthy Review or Deployment Stages may indicate bottlenecks in reviewer availability, testing, or deployment pipelines. To reduce delays, consider automating repetitive tasks or increasing reviewer resources.
Deploy Frequency in Days (Deploy Metrics)
- Why it matters: Higher frequency allows quicker iteration and reduced deployment risks.
- How to use: Aim for smaller, frequent deployments to improve agility.
Daily Work in Progress Tasks (Daily WIP Metrics)
- Why It Matters: Tracks how many tasks are actively being worked on. Too many WIP tasks indicate inefficiency.
- How to Use: Limit WIP tasks and focus on finishing tasks before starting new ones.
Issue Cycle Time per Task Type (Issue Cycle Time)
- Why it matters: Indicates how quickly tasks are resolved once they are in progress.
- How to use: Investigate Delayed Stages: Identify specific stages in your workflow where issues are delayed, such as "In Progress" or "In Review." Delays in these stages can point to bottlenecks like unclear requirements, resource shortages, or inefficient processes. Addressing these delays helps streamline the workflow and maintain steady progress.Analyze Cycle Time by Issue Type: Break down issue cycle time by type—such as Features, Bugs, Enhancements, or Hotfixes—to uncover patterns. For example, longer cycle times for Bugs may indicate gaps in testing or QA, while delays in Hotfixes might suggest inefficiencies in your incident response process.
Summary
Engineering velocity clearly shows how quickly your team can deliver value to users. You can identify bottlenecks and streamline workflows by leveraging metrics like PR Cycle Time, Deploy Frequency, and Issue Cycle Time.
For example, if PR Cycle Time reveals delays in the review stage, it may point to a lack of available reviewers or overly complex pull requests. To investigate further, you can turn to Code Review metrics for deeper insights into review activity and potential areas for improvement.
Similarly, monitoring Deploy Frequency can help you maintain a consistent flow of updates while tracking Issue Cycle Time, ensuring tasks move smoothly from start to finish.
Review these metrics regularly across squads or projects to identify areas for improvement and set benchmarks to monitor progress over time. Together, these insights help align your team’s development speed with business objectives, ensuring faster delivery without sacrificing quality.